The floor doesn't lie.
Neither do these numbers.
We walk onto factory floors with clipboards and leave behind connected ecosystems — sensors talking to dashboards, ERPs feeding real-time production schedules.
You're managing a factory
with 1990s visibility.
Every plant manager we've met knows exactly where the pain is. The problem isn't awareness — it's that the data to act on it doesn't exist in real time.
The Whiteboard Photo
Your shift supervisor texts you a blurry photo of a whiteboard at 6:43 AM. That's your production data.
The Spindle Drift
A $40,000 scrap event that started as a 2% spindle speed drift at 11 PM — caught at 6 AM when second shift pulled the parts.
The Spreadsheet ERP
Your ERP has data. Your MES has data. Neither talks to the other. So your scheduler works from a spreadsheet that's wrong by noon.
The Downtime Mystery
You know you lost 4 hours on Line 3 last Tuesday. You don't know if it was changeover, breakdown, or idle wait — and neither does anyone else.
Exactly what you're buying.
Phase by phase.
Manufacturing leaders have been burned by consultants who disappear after the deck. Every phase below is a fixed contract with defined deliverables, your time commitment, and measurable exit criteria before we advance.
Discovery Audit
"We read the floor before we touch a single wire."
Two Uptime engineers spend two days on-site walking every production line, interviewing shift supervisors, and mapping every data handoff — from sensor to spreadsheet to ERP. We leave with a complete Current State Map and a ranked list of the 8–12 highest-value instrumentation points on your floor.
- ›Current State Data Flow Map (PDF + editable Miro)
- ›Ranked Instrumentation Opportunity Matrix
- ›Preliminary ROI model with conservative/base/upside scenarios
- ›Architecture options brief (3 options, vendor-agnostic)
4–6 hours of plant manager and supervisor time across 2 days. No preparation required beyond badge access and a willing shift supervisor.
Signed-off Current State Map. Client agrees on top 3 pilot line candidates before Phase 2 begins.
Architecture Blueprint
"The exact stack, the exact cost, before a single dollar is spent."
We design the full technical architecture — sensor types, edge hardware, connectivity protocol, historian, dashboard layer, and ERP integration touchpoints — for both the pilot line and the eventual full deployment. Every component is specified with three vendor options and a total landed cost.
- ›Full technical architecture document (sensor → cloud → dashboard)
- ›Bill of materials with three vendor options per component
- ›Network and cybersecurity requirements brief
- ›Integration spec for your ERP (SAP, Oracle, Epicor, or custom)
- ›Implementation timeline with Gantt chart
2 working sessions (2 hours each) with your IT lead and one operations manager. Remote.
Architecture signed off by client IT and operations. Pilot line and sensor points agreed. Purchase orders issued for pilot hardware.
Pilot Line
"One line. Twelve sensors. Your first live OEE dashboard."
We instrument one production line with 12–18 IoT sensors, stand up your edge infrastructure, configure your historian, and build your first live OEE dashboard — all in 21 calendar days. By day 22, your plant manager is watching real-time availability, performance, and quality on a screen that refreshes every 15 seconds.
- ›12–18 sensors installed and calibrated on Pilot Line
- ›Edge gateway configured and secured
- ›Live OEE dashboard (availability · performance · quality)
- ›Downtime classification taxonomy (your categories, your language)
- ›Operator and supervisor training (2 hours)
- ›30-day anomaly baseline established
1 maintenance window (4–6 hours, off-shift) for sensor installation. Daily 15-minute check-in with Uptime PM during 21-day sprint.
Pilot line OEE visible in real time. Client operations team independently using dashboard for 5 consecutive days before Phase 4 begins.
Full Deployment
"Every line. Every shift. Every number."
We replicate the pilot architecture across all remaining production lines, integrate your ERP for real-time scheduling feedback, and stand up your plant-level command center. Deployment is phased by line priority — highest-value lines first — so you're generating ROI throughout the rollout, not waiting for day 120.
- ›Full plant sensor network (all lines)
- ›ERP integration (real-time production schedule → dashboard)
- ›Plant-level OEE command center dashboard
- ›Shift supervisor mobile app (tablet-optimized)
- ›Automated scrap and downtime reporting
- ›Custom alert rules per line and machine
- ›Full operator and maintenance team training
One maintenance window per line (4–6 hours each). Weekly 30-minute project review with Uptime PM.
All lines live. ERP integration validated. Plant manager independently running weekly OEE review from dashboard. Baseline OEE delta documented.
Continuous Optimization
"The dashboard is the beginning, not the deliverable."
Most consultants leave after go-live. We stay. Monthly, our engineers review your OEE trends, identify emerging drift patterns, update alert thresholds as your process evolves, and bring you one new optimization recommendation based on your actual data — not generic best practices.
- ›Monthly OEE trend review and written analysis
- ›Alert threshold tuning as process baselines shift
- ›One actionable optimization recommendation per month
- ›Quarterly architecture review (new lines, new machines)
- ›Priority support SLA (4-hour response on critical alerts)
1-hour monthly review meeting with operations manager. Everything else is Uptime-driven.
No fixed end. Clients typically see 8–14% additional OEE improvement in the 12 months following full deployment through continuous optimization alone.
The floor doesn't care
about slide decks.
Every number below is from a signed client. We don't round up. We don't cherry-pick. These are median outcomes across plant type and size.
We were texting whiteboard photos to the plant manager at 5 AM. Now he has a dashboard on his phone that refreshes every 15 seconds. We found a spindle drift pattern on Line 4 in week two that would have cost us $180,000 in a single month. Uptime paid for itself before the pilot was even done.
I've seen a lot of consultants come through this plant. Most leave behind a binder. Uptime left behind a working system. My shift supervisors stopped arguing about downtime codes because the data is right there. We cut unplanned downtime by 44% in six months.
The transparency in their process is what sold me. Before we signed, I knew exactly what we were buying, what it would cost my team in time, and what the exit criteria were for each phase. No surprises. The pilot was live in 19 days — two days ahead of schedule.
The objections every
plant manager carries.
Minimal. Phase 1 requires 4–6 hours of your plant manager and one shift supervisor across two days. We shadow — we don't stop production. Sensor installation in Phase 3 requires one off-shift maintenance window of 4–6 hours per line. We've done this in active 24/7 plants without a single unplanned minute of downtime.
ERPs record what happened. Our system shows what's happening right now. The typical integration we build feeds your ERP's production schedule back into the dashboard so schedulers see actual vs. planned in real time — and can adjust before the shift ends, not after the week-end report.
Our contracts include a defined improvement threshold for the pilot line. If we don't hit it by the end of Phase 3, you don't advance to Phase 4 and we refund the Phase 3 fee. The exit criteria are written into the contract before Phase 1 begins — not decided retroactively.
Both. If you have existing sensors, we audit them in Phase 1 and integrate what's reliable. Most plants have 20–40% usable existing instrumentation. We fill the gaps. We're vendor-agnostic — we've integrated with Siemens, Rockwell, Ignition, and custom PLCs.
It depends on plant size, existing infrastructure, and ERP complexity. Our Phase 1 audit produces a full cost model with conservative/base/upside scenarios before you commit to Phase 2. The median full deployment for a 6–10 line plant runs $280,000–$420,000 all-in, with a 4.2-month median payback.
Most clients identify their first actionable cost-saving insight within the 21-day pilot — before full deployment begins. The median payback across our 116 deployments is 4.2 months from Phase 3 go-live. The fastest was 6 weeks (a scrap reduction event on the pilot line that paid for the entire engagement).
Three fields.
One conversation that changes the floor.
No email gate. No PDF bait. You've seen the entire methodology — the only remaining question is when. We'll confirm within 4 business hours.