Maintenance & Quality Control

Keep your machines running with planned and unplanned maintenance tracking, recurring schedules, and a tools inventory. Make sure your products meet quality standards with anomaly tracking, inbound material inspections, and reusable inspection plans you can set up with custom checks and sampling rules.

Maintenance Events

This screen is your main log for all maintenance work on factory equipment. Every time a machine gets serviced, repaired, or adjusted, the system saves a record of what happened, why, who did it, and how long it took.

Each maintenance event includes these fields:

Title – a short name for the event (e.g., "Replace conveyor belt on Line 2" or "Yearly scale calibration S-014").
Type – Planned (scheduled preventive work) or Unplanned (a fix after a breakdown or problem). If you see too many unplanned events, it means your team is mostly reacting to problems instead of preventing them.
Target – the machine being fixed, linked to a device in your Factory Structure. This lets you see the full maintenance history for each asset.
Assigned Technician – the worker who will do the job, picked from your Workers list.
Scheduled Date – when the work is planned (for planned events) or when the breakdown happened (for unplanned events).
Status – where the event stands right now: Scheduled (coming up), In Progress (being worked on), Completed (done, waiting for sign-off), Verified (approved by a supervisor), or Cancelled.
Duration – how long the work actually took. This feeds into downtime and cost reports.
Notes – a text field where the technician writes down what they found, what parts they replaced, and any suggestions.

Maintenance events directly affect your OEE score. Planned downtime (like scheduled service) does not count against your Availability number, just like breaks. But unplanned downtime (unexpected breakdowns) does. This way, your factory is not punished for doing needed preventive work, while surprise failures still show up in your reports.

Use Case 1 – Breakdown Response: At 14:23, a temperature sensor on Injection Molder IM-007 sets off an overheating alarm. The operator reports it. The supervisor creates an unplanned event called "IM-007 Overheating Investigation" and assigns Technician Maria. She finds a blocked cooling line, clears it, and closes the event at 15:47 with notes on the root cause. Total downtime: 84 minutes, logged against Line 4's OEE.

Use Case 2 – Preventive Maintenance Compliance: At the end of each month, the maintenance manager checks how many planned events were finished on time. In June, 48 out of 52 were done on schedule (92% completion rate). The 4 overdue events get flagged and rescheduled. This number goes into the maintenance KPI dashboard for plant management.

Maintenance Schedules

Maintenance Schedules let you set up recurring maintenance events automatically. Instead of creating a new event every time you need an oil change or filter swap, you set up the schedule once. The system then creates the events for you at the right time.

You can pick from several frequency types:

Daily – creates an event every day (e.g., a daily machine inspection checklist).
Weekly – creates an event every N weeks on chosen days (e.g., lubrication every 2 weeks on Monday).
Monthly – creates an event every N months on a set date (e.g., safety valve check on the 1st of every month).
By Operating Hours – creates an event after a set number of running hours (e.g., bearing swap every 2,000 hours). This needs IoT data or manual hour logging.
By Production Cycles – creates an event after a set number of production cycles (e.g., die check every 10,000 cycles). Great for stamping, injection molding, and other repeating processes.

Each schedule tracks the Next Due Date. You can turn on auto-create to make events ahead of time (e.g., 7 days before they are due). This gives your team time to order parts and plan the work. Overdue schedules show up on the Dashboard and in Alerts.

Use Case – Condition-Based Maintenance: A sealing unit on a packaging line needs a new heating element every 50,000 cycles. The schedule is set to "By Production Cycles" with an interval of 50,000. When the counter gets close, the system creates a planned event two days early. The technician orders the part, swaps it during a changeover, and resets the counter. The unit never fails by surprise because the swap always happens before it wears out.

Use Case – Regulatory Compliance: Food safety rules say all equipment must be sanitized every month. You set up a monthly schedule for each line with auto-create 5 days before the due date. The system creates events on the 25th for sanitization due on the 1st. Your team has time to plan, and the factory stays compliant.

Tools Inventory

The Tools screen tracks your reusable tools, fixtures, molds, dies, and jigs. Unlike materials that get used up (tracked in the Materials catalog), tools are long-lasting items that get checked out, used, returned, and eventually replaced.

Each tool record shows: Name, Code (unique ID), Type (mold, die, fixture, jig, gauge, etc.), Current Location (which workstation or storage it is at), Condition (new, good, worn, needs repair, scrapped), and Usage Count (how many cycles it has been used). Compare the usage count to the tool's rated lifespan to know when you need a replacement.

Use Case – Tool Lifecycle Management: An injection mold rated for 500,000 cycles has hit 480,000. The system alerts your team that a replacement is needed soon. They order a new mold (lead time: 6 weeks) well before the old one wears out. No surprise downtime.

Cost Sources

Cost Sources are the extra cost categories you can add to maintenance events and work orders on top of material and labor costs. Examples: spare parts, outside contractor fees, equipment rental, calibration services, and energy charges.

Each cost source has a Name, Category, and an optional Default Rate (you can change it for each event). When a technician finishes a maintenance event, they pick cost items from the list and log the actual spending. This data goes into your cost reports. It also helps you show that spending on preventive maintenance is cheaper than fixing breakdowns.

Production Anomalies

Production Anomalies are problems that come up during manufacturing. Operators report them, or automated systems detect them. Unlike maintenance events (which focus on equipment), anomalies are about process issues that may or may not lead to defective products.

Each anomaly record saves: the Anomaly Reason (picked from the standard list in Products & Traceability), the Affected Work Order, the Production Line, the Timestamp, the Reporting Operator, the Quantity Affected (if any), and the Resolution Status (open, under investigation, resolved, or sent to maintenance).

Anomalies are early warning signs. One anomaly might be random. But if the same problem keeps showing up on the same line over a short time, something bigger is wrong. The Non-Conformance Report in the Reports module pulls all this anomaly data together so you can spot patterns.

Use Case – Spotting a Pattern: Over two weeks, operators on Line 5 report 12 anomalies for "temperature out of range." The quality engineer checks the trend and sees the problem getting worse. They investigate and find a worn-out thermocouple. It gets replaced during the next planned maintenance window. The following week, Line 5 has zero temperature anomalies.

Use Case – Operator Accountability: During a shift handover, the supervisor sees that Operator J reported zero anomalies over 40 hours. Every other operator on the same line averaged 2 to 3 per shift. This could mean Operator J is skipping reports. The supervisor talks to them about why reporting anomalies matters for improving the process.

Inbound Inspections

Inbound Inspections make sure that raw materials and parts from suppliers meet your quality standards before going into production. Every material lot can be inspected before it moves from the receiving dock to the Raw Materials warehouse.

Each inspection gets one of four results:

Status	Meaning	Effect
Pending	Inspection has not been done yet. The material lot is on hold.	Material cannot be used by work orders.
Completed (Pass)	All checks passed. Material is released.	Material lot moves to available stock in the Raw Materials warehouse.
Failed	Material does not meet the required specs.	Material lot goes to Quarantine. You must decide to return it or scrap it.
Conditional	Material has small issues but can be used in certain cases (e.g., only for non-critical products or with extra processing).	Material is released with a restriction flag that operators and planners can see.

The inspection record links to the Material Lot, the Supplier, the Inspection Plan used (see below), the Inspector who did the check, individual Criterion Results (pass/fail for each measured value), and any Attachments (photos, test certificates, measurement reports).

Use Case – Supplier Quality Tracking: Over the last 3 months, Supplier X fails inbound inspection 15% of the time. Supplier Y only fails 2%. Your purchasing team uses this data to push back on Supplier X, ask them to fix the problem, or switch to a better supplier. The inspection records give you solid proof to back up the conversation.

Inspection Plans

Inspection Plans are reusable templates that spell out what to check, how to check it, and how many samples to test. Instead of letting each inspector decide on their own, plans keep the process the same every time.

Each inspection plan includes:

Plan Name – a clear name (e.g., "Steel Rod Incoming Inspection" or "Finished Widget Final QC").
Linked Material or Product – which material or product type this plan is for. One plan can cover multiple materials.
Criteria List – each check spells out:
- Parameter to measure (e.g., diameter, weight, pH, color, tensile strength)
- Measurement Method (visual, caliper, scale, spectrometer, etc.)
- Acceptable Range (min/max values, or pass/fail for visual checks)
- Criticality (critical checks cause automatic failure; minor checks allow conditional acceptance)
Sampling Method – how many samples to test:
- 100% Inspection – every unit is checked (for high-value or safety-critical items)
- AQL Sampling – sample size based on lot size and Acceptable Quality Level (following ISO 2859-1)
- Fixed Sample – always check the same number of units no matter the lot size (e.g., always test 5 units)

When an inspector starts an inspection, they pick the right plan. The system shows a checklist with input fields for each measurement. It automatically marks each check as pass or fail based on the acceptable range. Then it calculates the overall result based on whether critical or minor checks failed.

Use Case – Same Standards Across Multiple Sites: A company with three factories needs the same quality checks everywhere. The quality manager creates inspection plans in OpenMES, and all three sites use the same criteria and sampling methods. When a supplier fails at one site, the other sites get an alert to inspect that supplier more closely – keeping quality consistent across the whole company.

Use Case – Risk-Based Inspection: A medical device maker has two types of incoming materials. Class A (critical, used in parts that touch patients) needs 100% inspection with 8 checks. Class B (non-critical, used in packaging) uses AQL sampling with just 3 checks. Two inspection plans handle this. You spend less time on low-risk materials while keeping tight control on high-risk ones.

Integration with Maintenance: When a production anomaly points to an equipment problem (e.g., "temperature out of range" reported 5 times in one shift), an inspector or supervisor can turn it into a maintenance event right away. The anomaly record stays linked to the maintenance event. This gives you a clear trail from the first sign of trouble all the way to the fix.

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