Cloud-based, plug-and-play machine monitoring is helping industry achieve far greater manufacturing productivity measures and profitability, without the high costs and disruption traditional machine monitoring solutions entail.
For these reasons, manufacturers of all sizes are adopting cloud-based machine monitoring technology at speed as part of their Industry 4.0 (smart factory) strategies – here are 10 reasons why.
What is Machine Monitoring?
Machine monitoring is the process of automatically tracking and recording a machine’s performance, status, and output—often in real time—using sensors, IoT devices, or software. It provides visibility into key metrics such as uptime, downtime, utilisation, and productivity, helping manufacturers identify issues, reduce waste, and improve efficiency.
10 Benefits of Machine Monitoring
01. Real-Time Visibility
Machine monitoring gives you an up-to-the-minute view of what’s happening on the shop floor, removing the delays and blind spots of paper reports or end-of-shift summaries. Production teams can instantly see which machines are running, which are idle, and why—enabling faster reaction to issues.
Bypass static spreadsheets as all captured data is fed into digital dashboards that offer you at-a-glance summaries of production progress – as well as the ability to view and improve your manufacturing productivity measures/ KPIs – all in real-time and securely accessible from any device. Know exactly what’s happening on the shop floor, minute by minute, without waiting for end-of-shift reports.
02. Increased Machine Utilisation
Identify and act on downtime, bottlenecks, and idle time to maximise available capacity.
Visibility on every machine, handy tablets provide your operators with an intuitive dashboard showing real-time data analytics, machine operators can input reasons for any downtime on the spot, in turn helping production managers resolve issues at speed as well as identify inefficiencies that are impacting productivity – no matter how big or small.
03. Data-Driven Decision Making
Replace guesswork with hard evidence, making improvement projects more targeted and effective. Run data-rich reports in moments on all your work orders and jobs to evaluate how well your machines were utilised during a particular job, as well as comparing actual time spent on a work order to the expected time. This, in turn, can help you quote more accurately and competitively in future.
04. Reduced Downtime
Pinpoint root causes of stoppages and measure the impact of corrective actions in real time.
Machine monitoring not only captures downtime events but also logs reasons, duration, and frequency. This makes it easier to spot patterns—whether they’re caused by process inefficiencies, material shortages, or operator interventions—and act to eliminate them.
05. Faster Changeovers
Use insights to apply SMED principles, reducing setup times and increasing productive hours.
Monitoring setup and changeover durations provides the baseline data needed to apply SMED (Single-Minute Exchange of Dies) techniques. Over time, this reduces setup times, allowing more production to be completed within the same shift
06. Improved OEE (Overall Equipment Effectiveness)
Monitor and improve availability, performance, and quality for a complete productivity picture.
Benchmark productivity and measure OEE by eliminating shop floor inefficiencies – such as changeover, maintenance, eliminating waste or servicing schedules. All of which will improve OEE goals, including performance and availability.
07. Better Resource Allocation
Direct labour, materials, and maintenance to the areas of greatest need, backed by live data.
With live utilisation data, managers can assign operators, materials, and maintenance teams to the machines and processes that will deliver the greatest return. This prevents overstaffing in low-priority areas and under-resourcing where it matters most.
08. Stronger Continuous Improvement Culture
Data becomes a shared language for the business. Teams can bring facts to Kaizen stand-ups, Gemba walks, and daily production meetings, fostering collaboration, transparency, and a problem-solving mindset across shifts and departments.
09. Reduced Waste
Machine monitoring supports Lean manufacturing by helping identify the Eight Wastes—waiting, overproduction, motion, over-processing, inventory, defects, transport, and underutilised talent. By spotting inefficiencies quickly, waste can be reduced or eliminated.
10. Enhanced Workforce Engagement
Give operators a voice through downtime reporting, show them their impact, and build buy-in for change.
Operators can log downtime reasons directly at the machine, ensuring their knowledge and experience feed into improvement efforts. When teams see that their input drives real changes, engagement and morale improve, leading to more proactive problem-solving.
Monitoring machine uptime/downtime is a manufacturing productivity measure that FourJaw helps improve.
Machine Monitoring is Moving from Strategy to Reality
A recent survey by independent research firm Tech-Clarity found that 58% of manufacturers have a machine monitoring and optimisation strategy in place. In the industrial equipment and machinery sector, that figure rises sharply to 91%.
However, having a strategy is not the same as deploying the technology. Many manufacturers still rely on manual methods, delaying the shift to solutions such as cloud-based machine monitoring.
When we speak to manufacturers, the reasons for not implementing often sound familiar:
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Perceived high installation costs
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Concerns about compatibility with older machines
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Worries about disrupting production
These are precisely the challenges we set out to solve with FourJaw’s plug-and-play, cloud-based machine monitoring system—designed to work on virtually any machine, install quickly, and deliver immediate value.
According to the Tech-Clarity report, 86% of manufacturers who monitor and optimise machines report increased profitability, with 35% seeing significant gains. This is hardly surprising given the benefits machine monitoring brings: higher throughput, reduced downtime, lower resource usage, and improved Overall Equipment Effectiveness (OEE). Ultimately, these improvements flow from the shop floor right up to the boardroom, delivering measurable bottom-line impact.
Our customer data tells a similar story. FourJaw research shows that under-utilised CNC machines can cost manufacturers both money and customers, with up to 80% of available hours being lost simply because teams aren’t aware of all the downtime occurring.
So the question becomes: how can cloud-based, plug-and-play machine monitoring help your factory unlock hidden capacity and improve productivity?
Machine Monitoring drives Improvement & ROI
Such benefits are already paying off for companies that have introduced FourJaw’s machine monitoring to their shop floors, but don’t just take our word for it! 86% of companies surveyed by Tech-Clarity state their profitability has increased, with 35% going further, saying it has increased profitability significantly.
Perhaps the real question here is not if factories should adopt machine monitoring to help monitor and measure their manufacturing productivity, but when. After all, the CNC machine market alone is predicted to grow by 5.5% between 2019 and 2026.
And, as monitoring technology is introduced across more shop floors, this will leave those reliant on manual monitoring less productive in the face of increasingly agile competition. In this current financial climate, that’s a risk few of us can afford to take.
If you're looking to identify or improve your factory’s manufacturing productivity measures, but are battling with reasons such as those listed below as to why it may not be right for your factory?
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I’ve got a mix of old and new machines. Will machine monitoring work across them all?
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Isn’t machine monitoring expensive?
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We haven’t needed it in the past; why do we need it now?
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I want to try it, but I’m concerned about disruption to the shop floor.
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Smart factory, IoT 4.0, cloud platform – all just seem like a lot of hype and overcomplicated.
Book a free demonstration of our plug-and-play machine monitoring platform and let FourJaw help you improve your manufacturing productivity measures, or have a read of some of our customer success stories and discover how companies just like yours are using our machine monitoring platform to help them improve their manufacturing productivity measures.
