What's process control for?

A process control chart can tell you a lot about your process by visually rendering parameter measurements in line graphs. Comparing the measurements of different parameters on the same machine, and comparing between the measurements of the same parameter on different machines provides you with essential, ongoing, contextual information that helps you control the processes in your site.

The implementation of process control in Matics is very flexible both in the combinations you can make when building your process control charts (which are called 'displays'), and in the many choices you have for focusing on what is interesting to you when viewing these charts. Process control charts are organized in dashboards. You start by adding a dashboard and then build the charts that comprise it. Dashboards you add will be available to others, and dashboards added by others will be available to you. This generates a creative commons of process control visualizations. Use these dashboards to compare and monitor the relationship between certain processes per selected parameters, and for early detection of bad outcomes.

Creating dashboards

How to create a new process control dashboard

Go to the Process Control Dashboard page, which can be accessed from any of the following:
- Process Control (main menu)
- Production Floor > Factory View > Process Control Dashboard
- Production Floor > All Machines > Process Control Dashboard
Click Create New Dashboard.
Enter a short, descriptive name for the dashboard.
Build the first process control display (line chart) to include in the dashboard. The Process control display option is selected by default, since currently there are no other display types.
1. Select a machine and then a parameter to create the first machine-parameter combination.
2. (optional) Select the Show parameter limits check box to enable presenting in the chart this parameter's set standard, which are the upper and lower limits set in the job recipe, or set for the machine. If this check box remains clear, control limits cannot be presented.
3. Click Save. If this display should only include this single parameter, skip to the end of this sub-procedure (step g).
4. To add another parameter to the line graph display, click Add Parameter.
5. Create the next machine-parameter combination by selecting a machine and a parameter. See in sub-step b above information about the the Show parameter limits check box.
  If this parameter is of a different type of unit, or uses a significantly different value range, select the Secondary Y axis check box. This will add another Y axis to the process control display.
6. Click Save.
7. If you have completed building your display, click Done.
To add another process control display (line graph) in this dashboard, click Add Process Control Display.
Repeat step 4 to build the next process control display. You can add as many process control displays as you need to a single dashboard.
Click Save and View when you have finished adding process control displays.
In the following section we explain how you use this dashboard, or any other dashboard that's available in the dashboards' management page (the Process Control Dashboard page).

Creating a new dashboard by duplicating an existing dashboard

Duplicating an existing dashboard can save a lot of time by using it as the basis for a new dashboard that is somewhat is similar, since then you can reuse some of its displays as-is, or make adjustments where needed. You can duplicate dashboards that you created, as well as dashboards created by others. When duplicating a dashboard created by others the duplicate is added to your dashboards in the Created by Me section.

Making use of process control dashboards

Starting point

Go to the Process Control Dashboard page, which can be accessed from any of the following:
- Process Control (main menu)
- Production Floor > Factory View > Process Control
- Production Floor > All Machines > Process Control
Click the target dashboard to open it.
Set the time period for the data in the dashboard (you can also select to display the process control data per the currently running job).
Similar to other production-floor dashboards--Online, Shift, Custom KPIs--the Process Control dashboard is a visual infographic with current data.

Show on the timeline when jobs were activated

To add to the chart information of when jobs were activated for more context, click [Hide] Job Activation if it's not in the Show state.
Job Activation has a drop-down list in which you choose whether to present Matics job IDs or ERP job IDs in the pop-up info windows that are shown when hovering over a point on the graph.

Vertical dashed lines will be added to the chart's timeline for each job activation point. Tip: If jobs in your site run for extended periods of time, make sure the set time period is long enough to present job activation points, for example the last 7 days.

Show parameter limits

Note: A prerequisite for showing parameter limits on the chart is enabling this option for the parameter when creating or editing the display (step 4b above).

To see how the parameter measurements compare to the set standard, click Parameter Limits when this control is in show state (see show/hide controls below),

the parameter's upper and lower limits will be shown on the chart as red dashed lines, flanked with reddish shading. If the chart includes multiple parameters, you can either hide the other parameters, or examine whether a measurement point of the parameter is within limits by clicking it to present the set standard.
For example:

Examine the chart: zooming in and filtering

Selecting a segment (by click + drag) of the chart zooms in to examine in more detail the selected time period. Use successive zooming in until you reach the level of detail you need. If you have multiple displays in the dashboard, enabling Zoom in for all will apply your zooming selection to all the charts in the dashboard, which is a powerful option since you can then see what occurred to different machines and parameters during this focus time.

To reset to the default zoom, click the cancel zoom icon:

If the chart includes multiple parameters, clicking the process control combinations listed in the legend that you're not interested in, will remove their line graphs from the chart and gray out their color in the legend. Click again to revive the item. This is particularly useful when you have two Y axes (a primary axis and a secondary axis) due to the different nature of the parameters in the process.

walkthrough example of filtering the display chart

Export to CSV, PDF and graphic images

Exporting the dashboard data can be done at the dashboard level, which will include all the dashboard's displays, or at the level of each display.

At the dashboard level you can export the dashboard display charts to a PDF file.

At the display chart level you can export the display chart's data to a CSV file, or export the chart to any of the following formats: PDF, JPG, SVG.

Process control timeline

When the display includes a single chart, you can view the timeline of events that accompanies it, per the selected time period -- up to 24 hours -- which can be very useful for process analysis of recent events.

Click timeline settings to filter the event icons shown on the timeline and display only icons of events that are of interest to you.

Click the view log arrow to present beneath the timeline its corresponding event log. Scroll through this log to view details about each event. You can also report and split stop event events with ease from this interactive log.

Managing dashboards

Note: Only dashboards that you created can be modified and deleted.

Go to the Process Control Dashboard page, which can be accessed from any of the following:
- Process Control (main menu)
- Production Floor > Factory View > Process Control
- Production Floor > All Machines > Process Control
Click the actions menu and choose Edit.
If you want to delete the dashboard choose Delete.
Expand the PC display you want to modify. You will see the indicator that you're in edit mode.
Edit whatever needs to be edited:
- Click the edit control near the name of the PC display if you want to change it.
- Click the edit control in the machine | parameter card to edit it.
- Click Add Parameter to add machine | parameter combinations to the display.
- Click the delete control in the machine | parameter card to delete this machine | parameter combination from the display.
Click Done. (Only the Close control will be available if you haven't made any changes to machine | parameter combinations.)
If you want to add another PC display, click Add Process Control Display (detailed information on adding process control displays is provided in step 5 onward in the procedure above).
Click Save and View to apply your changes, or click Discard to exit edit mode without saving any changes.

Icon legend

	Select the time period for the dashboard's data
	Manually refresh the data
	Export the display chart to a PDF file or the display's data to Excel.
	Edit the dashboard. In edit mode you can add and remove displays, and drill down to make changes in each display.
	When Zoom in for all is active (purple), zooming in on one display chart (that is, selecting a part of the display chart), zooms in on the same time-segment of all the other dashboard's display charts too.
	Exit zoom-in mode.
	Indicates that the dashboard includes process control displays, and the number indicates how many displays are in this dashboard.
	Indicates that the display type is a process control display. Click to see the list of parameters included in the process control display and to edit/add parameters as needed.
	Show/Hide controls. When showing job activation, you will see in vertical dashed lines on the timeline the jobs' activation points. When showing parameter limits, the standard set for the parameter, its upper and lower limits, is presented in red. The prerequisite is to select the Show parameter limits check box when creating or editing the display.
	Actions menu. At the dashboard level menu options include: Editing the dashboard Duplicating the dashboard Deleting the dashboard At the display level menu options include: Viewing the chart in full screen Printing out the chart Downloading the chart data in CSV format Downloading the chart as a JPG image file Downloading the chart as a PDF file Downloading the chart as a SVG vector image
	Duplicate the current dashboard.
	Search as you type. The list of matching dashboards will be filtered per your search text.