Improving Manufacturing Efficiency with Digital Production Display Boards

The World Bank estimates that 24% of the world's workforce works in manufacturing, construction, mining, and public utilities industries. These "deskless" workers spend less than an hour per day in front of a computer screen. And the ways they receive and consume work-related information are night-and-day different from knowledge workers, who face an average of 120 new emails per day.

The sad irony is that factory floor workers arguably need better lines of communication with management than their deskbound counterparts. If the sales team misses an update, it might derail a potential deal. 

But if someone working the production line is out of the loop, it could wreck deliverables, long-standing client relationships, or the company’s reputation. Or worse, it could put an employee in the hospital. Well-placed, eye-catching, and remotely updated digital signage screens can help prevent all of that. 

Digital signage in manufacturing

Digital signage, in its most basic form, replaces physical bulletin boards, printed announcements, safety reminders, and wayfinding. Using TVs, tablets, and video walls these displays can be updated to stream text, images, and video uploaded from virtually any web browser connected to the internet. 

In manufacturing, specifically, digital signage displays are invaluable for keeping deskless workers updated on facility efficiency and output, with real-time data.

What is a production display board?

Digital production displays are easily readable, network-connected screens that show live feeds of data. What it displays can be key performance indicators, productivity stats, quality metrics, upcoming shift changes, station dashboards, and just about any other number, chart, or information that showcases the current status of an overall workflow or specific step in a production process. 

Typically, production data is sent to the production boards from IoT devices and third-party apps (e.g. SAP, Siemens Opcenter, Rockwell Automation, etc.) to a digital signage app like ScreenCloud, which reformats the data to make it legible and digestible.

Depending on the environment they operate in, display board hardware may need to be rated for exposure to dust and extreme temperatures. But in terms of size, these screens can be as small as an iPad displaying one or two key metrics, as big as multiple large screens placed side by side to create a large, combined display area, or anything in between.

Perhaps most importantly, production display boards must be “glanceable.” It shouldn’t take more than a few seconds for a trained worker to look at a board and absorb critical information. That means following layout and design best practices and remembering that in most cases less is more. 

How are production display boards set up and managed?

All that’s required to get started is a screen, a digital signage media player, and a wired or wireless network in range of the media player. In fact, if you have an extra TV and a cheap streaming stick (like a Chromecast), you can sign up for a free trial of ScreenCloud and build a test production display without spending a dime.

Power on the screen, plug in a compatible media player, connect it to the internet, and install your digital signage app.

At this point, if you’re using ScreenCloud, you’ll see a pairing code on the screen. 

Log into the web app (you don’t need to be on the same network as the screen), click New Screen, and enter the pairing code. That would be enough to let you upload or sync content to your connected screens from a satellite office, home, or anywhere else, via the web app.

Now, imagine that you have multiple screens spread across the factory floor. You could split screens into multiple segments, showing facility-wide metrics and data in one top-level segment and station- or area-specific broken out into their own, separate segments. 

Rinse and repeat for each display board location to create a hierarchy of relevant data feeds from multiple sources across manufacturing processes. It’s not essential, but an upgrade from legacy approaches that production staff will definitely appreciate. 

Installing production display boards: Before and after

The problems of uninformed and disconnected floor workers are too many to count. Unmotivated and unengaged employees lead to higher turnover, increased recruitment and training costs, and more production bottlenecks. Floor managers spend most of their time as human carrier pigeons, shuffling from station to station to provide updates. 

Scribbled post-it notes are haphazardly stuck wherever there’s room, with no indication of how long ago they were put there. Everyone on the plant floor has different information and ideas about the current state of affairs. Interruptions or errors take time to make their way through the chain of communication and the same goes for fixes and adjustments. 

All of the data exists. But there’s no way to cascade information reliably and consistently from the source to people who need it most.

In the early stages of a transition to digital display boards, you usually want to start slow, possibly with just one screen at the manufacturing step or station that needs it most. Keep the number of items on the screen to a minimum and let it run for a few days. Give frontline employees time to adjust. 

Then, when everyone is ready, try adding more information to the board. Experiment with splitting the screen into segments and dedicating one of them to facility-wide KPIs and metrics. If all goes well, you can add new screens, copying the original layout and replacing any location-specific data sections.

While ScreenCloud includes unlimited users in every plan, it’s often better to limit the number of people who can control a digital production display board to a few main office staff. Too many cooks in the kitchen can lead to inconsistent layouts and overstuffed dashboards. 

Remember: Screens should be glanceable.

Digital signage on the production floor helps employees see how their work contributes to overall productivity. Their contributions are measured and visible for everyone to see, including shift managers who will have more time for big-picture improvements and decision making. Quantitative data on digital display boards will always have a timestamp. That way, everyone is on the same page and can react to issues and interruptions as they happen.

How much do production line display boards cost?

Digital signage placed in a production environment will inevitably cost more than signage in an office. That’s not to say that you can’t use consumer-level hardware. It’s totally possible for display board hardware to end up costing as little as $900 for a five-year lifespan. 

But for screens to be legible, durable, and safe on a production floor, special upgrades may be needed that double or triple the cost.

Production display boards may need above-average brightness levels (1,000+ nits) or anti-glare coatings for low-light or outdoor environments, or those with flashing lights. 

What’s more, you may need to look for screens with IP5X dust and moisture protection that are rated and warrantied for 24/7 operation. If screens will not be mounted on walls, there might be additional costs for special mounts and cabling. Those and other considerations are worth keeping in mind when buying displays to use in business.

Beyond the costs of specialized screens, the digital media players attached to each screen need to be similarly advanced. For facilities where digital signage security is a concern, every display board should be connected to the network via hardware that is protected by enterprise configurations, such as proxies, custom root CAs, and audit logs.

The software that syncs production flow data to media players shouldn’t require any manufacturing-specific upgrades. ScreenCloud, for example, only has three pricing tiers and the middle one should suffice for most production display boards.

Ballpark figures, you’re looking at $750 for a screen that doesn’t require serious upgrades and $1,500 for one that does. A floor-ready media player will cost $150 and a manufacturing-friendly digital signage app is $30 per month. From what we’ve seen, this always ends up being more than worth it.

Digital signage for the manufacturing floor up to the head office

Production line display boards are only one example of how digital signage can vastly improve production performance, streamline overall equipment effectiveness, and improve safety. 

Breakroom screens are great for increasing employee engagement and building cross-team relationships. 

Wayfinding digital display boards can make it easier to meet safety regulation requirements and update production routes. 

Meeting room signage is a huge help for scheduling and holding video sync ups across multiple locations. Anything you can think of that would fit on a screen could be uploaded and synced remotely with digital signage.

It’s hard to ignore a well placed display board. Use that to your advantage. A small number of well placed display boards with performance data might be all you need to increase productivity, identify bottlenecks, and finally get rid of tedious manual updates.

Sign up for a free 14-day ScreenCloud trial to see for yourself!