Machine Monitoring Software for Contract Manufacturers

Improve Productivity

Real-time machine data provides you with the top causes of machine downtime.

Gain Visibility

Understand what's happening in real-time on the shop floor.

Reduce Costs

FourJaw empowers you to boost productivity and cut costs effectively.

Downtime Reasons

Real-time machine data provides you with the top reasons/causes of machine downtime.

Live Data Capture

Track machine and job status, ensuring you know the state of your machines at all times.

Live Alerts

Instant notifications enable proactive action, preventing costly downtime.

Offset Supply Chain And Inflationary Pressures

IMPROVING PRODUCTIVITY IS THE BIGGEST LEVER YOU CAN PULL

Contract manufacturers often feel the brunt of supply chain and inflationary pressures sooner than OEMs, you've fixed a price, waited for the quote to be accepted and then you find out material costs have gone up.

We know protecting your margins is critical so you can remain competitive. FourJaw machine monitoring enables you to offset supply change and economic pressures by enabling you to get more out of your shop floor machines.

Best of all, our machine monitoring software works on any type of machine. So whether you're running Doosan, Haas, or Mazak or a combination of all three, or any other brand for that matter, our platform will give you the same unified view of your shop floor data.

INCREASE PRODUCTIVITY Machine monitoring identifies inefficiencies to enable managers and machine operators to take quick corrective action, reducing downtime and driving productivity.

INCREASE CAPACITY Reduce downtime on day and night shifts using real-time data insight. Giving you more capacity from the same resources.

GROW PROFITABILITY

FourJaw machine monitoring lowers your production costs by increasing productivity, reducing wasted energy usage and growing existing machining capacity.

DRIVE SUSTAINABILITY See how energy usage translates to costs and carbon footprint to motivate change. Track energy usage by machine, cell, production line or factory, in real-time and over time.

MANUFACTURING SUCCESS STORY

UN-LOCKING MACHINE DOWNTIME COSTING MORE THAN £100,000 IN TIME

Learn how FourJaw machine monitoring software enabled this manufacturer to figure out and identify the top downtime reasons on their machines, and how it uncovered how much 'on-machine programming' was costing them as a company.

FourJaw plug and play machine monitoring IoT device

Install MachineLink Hardware

Simply supply power to the FourJaw MachineLink IoT device, then attach the sensor to your machine’s power cable.

Connect To The Internet

Connect the MachineLink to your factory's Wi-Fi network (or simply wait for it to connect if you requested pre-configuration).

Securely See Your Data

Log in to the secure, cloud-based FourJaw Web App and data from your factory floor will start to pull into the platform within a few minutes.

Frequently Asked Questions

How Can Machine Monitoring Improve Productivity & Machine Utilisation?

Machine monitoring provides manufacturers with full factory floor visibility of how well machines are being utilised, by showing the machine downtime and uptimes.

With the FourJaw machine monitoring platform, operatives can categorise the reasons for the downtimes so factory floor managers get a clear picture of how productive the machines are. Here's a useful case study that shows how a manufacturer improved their machine utilisation by 400%.

Does FourJaw machine monitoring work on old machines? Yes. Our machine monitoring platform was specifically designed to make machine monitoring accessible to manufacturers of all shapes and sizes, which of course meant we designed our platform to work with any type of machine, regardless of age, brand or model. So you can turn your 50-year-old machine into a 'smart machine', helping you to understand how productive your machines are.

Can Machine monitoring help reduce energy usage?

Although not specifically designed to reduce energy usage, machine monitoring software can help factories reduce their energy usage indirectly and therefore become more efficient and sustainable.

Because our machine monitoring software reports on your machine utilisation, by machine, cell or factory, the data allows you to see when a machine is being run but doesn't need to be, i.e. wasting energy. By identifying 'negative machine downtime' we have helped a number of manufacturers reduce their production costs, thanks to the data insight FourJaw machine monitoring provided.

Is plug-and-play machine monitoring software expensive?

No. Unlike traditional machine monitoring solutions, we designed our machine monitoring platform to be accessible, not only did we make it easy to install (minimising disruption to your shop floor) but we also made it affordable.

We offer monthly payment plans and you can install it yourself, so there are no high upfront installation costs often associated with traditional machine monitoring solutions. Find out more about the pricing plans we offer here.

What data does FourJaw machine monitoring capture?

Utilisation Data

FourJaw starts with utilisation data in it's simplest form. The specially designed MachineLink hardware is a combination of miniature computer and current clamps. These two current clamps are typically attached to the total power incomer of the machine and the main drive unit, for example a spindle motor of a CNC machine.

This raw data is recorded every second and sent to our secure Azure cloud platform. The data is then instantly built into chunks of running and not running data, typically over 20-second periods, which is then displayed and categorised throughout the FourJaw platform.

What this provides is a very accurate measure of when the productive part of the machine experiences load and when it does not. Applied to this data is FourJaw's Machine Learning program which automatically classifies the data into productive/active and idle/inactive time. This means warm up runs and free air cycles are classed as idle time in the case of a CNC machine as the machines is not in its productive state.

How does FourJaw capture Machine Downtime Data?

Downtime reasons are inputted by the operator of the machine via a tablet which is installed beside the operator.

Each tablet is paired with a machine via the same FourJaw portal running on a Chrome browser.

When the MachineLink hardware, detailed above, measures a set period of idle time a pop-up appears on the platform asking the user to log why the period of idle time has occurred, this can be inputted straight away, during the downtime or even post the downtime if required.

Does FourJaw machine monitoring platform capture work booking and job data?

Yes it does.

Work order information can be inputted manually or directly imported from a .CSV file.

This data includes the WO number, operations, machine names, estimated job time and start dates.

As with all parts of the FourJaw platform, this data is combined with the downtime and utilisation data to provide meaningful and actionable insights into your production process.

I already monitor Work order times, Ops times and setup times, why is this different?

As a manufacturer, it's highly likely you'll already be monitoring Work order times, Ops times and setup times, of course, this is all useful, however, it does not give you the big picture.

For instance, it doesn't identify and inform you of what improvements can be made to improve shop floor productivity.

Machine monitoring differs because it will give you real-time, actionable shop floor data such as:

Top 5 downtimes, per factory, cell or machine
Pareto plots
Average setup time per part
Downtimes and machine active times per work order

This information can be used to take decisions based on fact and not opinion.

Which contract manufacturing machines can use FourJaw? FourJaw's advanced machine monitoring solution is designed for use on all types of manufacturing equipment and is suitable for contract manufacturers of all sizes.

Contract manufacturers typically use our analytics software on: