MachineMetrics Glossary of Terms

MachineMetrics uses a variety of terms on a regular basis, and some of these terms may not be familiar to everyone.  We've compiled this glossary of terms to list and define what they are and what they mean.  Some of them will include links to other articles that go into more detail.

• Action:  A specific action that fires when a Workflow’s trigger condition is met.
• Activity:  Allows customers to contextualize the Activities in custom ways. These are added, edited, and created by customers. Activities are set to a single Activity Mode and given a unique name by customer (for example: Setup: Change Tool vs. Setup: First Piece Inspection).
• Agent:  Another name for an Edge Device or Gateway typically used to reference Edge Devices internally within our systems.
• Alarm:  An error code generated directly from an individual machine.
• Availability:  Scheduled Time In-Cycle ÷ Scheduled Time
• Axis:  An axis of a machine is a direction of motion, linear or rotary, that the machine offers, that can be independently controlled by a machining program e.g. G-code.
• Current Shift:  The active shift at that moment in time.
• Current Shift Dashboard: Displays the current activities and details in tile view.
• Cycle:  The interval in which a machine starts and finishes a part.
• Cycle Time: The time it takes to complete a single cycle. The time it takes to do one repetition of any particular task, typically measured from “Start to Start” - the starting point of one product’s processing in a specified machine or operation until the start of another product’s processing in the same machine.
• Dashboard: A unique view of all of a company’s Machines displayed as different types of tiles, with different options for views and data points displayed.
• Diagnostics:  All the data being received on an individual Machine.
• Diagnostic Timeline:  A highly customizable timeline view that focuses on diagnostics data and that can be viewed historically or live.
• DNC - Distributed Numerical Control (or older, Direct Numerical Control):  CNC industry term for transferring programs to (and from) CNC machines over a network or computer connection, as opposed to manually entering programs or loading them from another form of media like a USB stick.
• Downtime:  The amount of time a machine has not been in an active/running state (AKA "in cycle"). Unique Downtime categories are set up by customers for their operators to select from when a machine is down. They can include anything from "maintenance" to "broken tooling" to "lunch break".
• Downtime Behavior:  Defines whether a Downtime Event was planned or unplanned.
• Downtime Category:  The classification given to contextualize the reason behind an individual Downtime Event.
• Downtime Event:  A single, continuous instance of Downtime.
• Edge Device:  The Edge Device is a small internet of things (IoT) computer placed on the machine floor which serves as the communication bridge between one or many machines and our cloud. It runs a suite of services to ensure data is collected and streamed consistently across various types of integrations and adapter sources.
• Failure:  The machine is operating below the performance goal and below the performance warning threshold for the current shift. The machine most likely will not meet its performance goal. In the Utilization view, this color may also mean only that the machine is not in use.
• Feed Override:  Adjustable setting on a machine that controls feed (IPM) of the machine’s axes. (Usually 0-150%)
• Gateway:  When an Edge Device is connected to more than one machine, it can be referred to as a Gateway for those machines. In our application, we refer to all Edge Devices as “Gateways” however, regardless of the distinction between 1 or many machines.
• Goal:  The machine is operating at or above the performance goal for the current shift.
• Instructions:  Profiles of information configured in MM settings that get attached to relevant Maintenance Schedules.
• Machine Type:  Describes the fundamental purpose and output of a Machine.
• Maintenance Schedule:  Monthly/Weekly scheduled maintenance of a machine’s major operating parts.
• OEE - Overall Equipment Effectiveness:  A common measurement of a machine's efficiency that uses Availability, Performance, and Quality to produce a percentage of a machine's overall performance over a period of time when jobs are scheduled.  For more information about OEE, visit our Knowledge Base article here.
• OOE - Overall Operations Effectiveness:  A measurement similar to OEE, but takes unscheduled time into account.  Where OEE looks at the time when jobs are scheduled, OOE looks at how much time a machine is running vs the length of the scheduled shift regardless of scheduled jobs.  Performance and Quality remain the same in the OOE calculation, for more information about OOE, visit our Knowledge Base article here.
• Operator Run:  A historical record of a single Operator being contiguously logged in to MachineMetrics (resets by default on Shift Change).
• Override:  Adjustable setting on a machine that controls the speed/feed of a tool or axis. (Usually 0-150%)
• Part Count: How many parts a machine has produced for a given Job or during a contiguous duration of time.
• Performance:  An umbrella term that includes OEE, Parts Goal & Utilization.
• Performance Dashboard:  Displays a historical view of performance in card view.
• Planned Downtime:  Any Downtime that was planned or expected, such as a lunch break, regular maintenance, etc.
• Preventative Maintenance:  The page in which “Maintenance Schedules” are created, viewed, managed, and edited.
• Previous Shift:  The shift immediately preceding the "Current Shift"
• Program:  The program that runs on the machine and tells it how to perform the task.
• Quality:  The number of Good Parts divided by the number of Total Parts.
• Reject: Any part that is intentionally excluded from the count of Good Parts.
• Scheduled Time:  Scheduled time is any time where parts are intended to be made. Parts are not intended to be made during the planned portion of setup or when a job isn’t scheduled to be run at all.
• Setup:  All efforts utilized to get a machine ready for a Job (setting tooling, fixtures, work zeros, offsets, etc.) that can optionally be divided up into “stages”.
• Setup Stage:  A stage within the greater whole within the process of a Setup.
• Shift:  Company-specific divisions of time created to contextualize data that happens within those periods of time.
• Split Downtime:  The act of splitting a currently running, categorized Downtime Event into a new, separate event.
• Standard Timeline:  A curated, historical timeline view focusing on the essentials of machine activity.
• TEEP - Total Effective Equipment Performance:  The most stringent measurement as compared to OEE and OOE, TEEP takes into account all time.  It assumes any given machine can be running 24/365 and measures active time against that.  Like OEE and OOE, Performance and Quality remain the same in the TEEP calculation.  For more information about TEEP, visit our Knowledge Base article here.
• Timeline:  Displays a historical view of a single machine’s data in a timeline view - a visual representation of data, plotted historically and in real-time, that can be explored in both high-level and granular ways.
• Timelines Dashboard: Displays a historical view of execution in a timeline view.
• Trigger:  The specific condition that acts as the trigger for a Workflow.
• Unplanned Downtime:  Any unexpected Downtime that was not planned such as a tool break, stuck part, etc.
• Utilization:  The amount of time the machine is in use compared to when it's down. MachineMetrics typically tracks this at the machine level by tracking the percentage of time in which a machine is in cycle. A machine is considered in cycle if it currently running a program.
• Warning:  The machine is operating below the performance goal for the current shift but above the failure threshold.  The machine may not meet the performance goal.