Data Driven Manufacturing

Our Wireless Andon lights generate data every time someone presses a button. Stack Light Commander captures every status change and generates a timestamp.  What you do with that data makes a valuable difference to your operation. This guide shows you how to use our analytics tools to find production bottlenecks, measure downtime, and track improvements over time.

The Analytics Toolkit

Stack Light Commander gives you six ways to look at your andon system data. Each view answers a different question.

Timeline View

The Timeline shows status changes over time in grouped intervals. You pick a time range, and the Andon software draws a color-coded bar for each team showing what status they were in at each point. This is where you spot patterns. If Station A turns red every day at 2 PM, the Timeline makes it obvious.

The Timeline view reveals patterns in status changes across your teams.

Pie Charts

Pie Charts break down how each team spends its time by status color. You can see at a glance that Pack Line B spent 62% of its shift in green (running), 18% in yellow (warning), and 20% in red (stopped). Compare teams side by side to find the ones that need attention.

Pie Charts show how each team splits its time across different statuses.

Bar Graph

The Bar Graph lets you compare duration and frequency across teams. How many times did each station turn red? How much total red time did each accumulate? This view ranks your teams so you can see which ones are operating the most effectively.

Bar Graphs rank teams by duration and frequency so you can prioritize where to focus.

Cycle Summary

The Cycle Summary table shows cycle counts and cycle times for each team. You can compare average cycle times across stations to find the ones running slower than expected. If your target cycle time is 45 seconds and one station is averaging 68, you have found your bottleneck.

The Cycle Summary gives you a numeric breakdown of every team's activity by color.

Historical Log

The Historical Log is a detailed record of every status change event in your system. Each row shows the team, the color, the timestamp, and the state (on or off). You can filter by time range, team, and color to drill into exactly what happened. This is your raw data view for investigating specific incidents.

The Historical Log records every status change with a timestamp for detailed investigation.

CSV Export

Every analytics view in Commander can be exported to a CSV file. Download the raw data and bring it into Excel, Google Sheets, or whatever analysis tool your team prefers. This is how you feed production data into your own reports, dashboards, and continuous improvement tracking systems.

Real-World Example: Finding the Bottleneck

Here is how this works in practice. Say you have two assembly stations, Station A and Station B, feeding into a shared packaging line. Production feels slow, but nobody can point to the specific problem.

You open the Pie Charts for the last week. Station A shows 71% green, 8% yellow, 21% red. Station B shows 54% green, 12% yellow, 34% red. Station B is your bottleneck. It spends a third of its time stopped.

Next you open the Timeline view filtered to Station B. You see a clear pattern: it turns red for 10 to 15 minutes at the same time every morning and again after lunch. The Bar Graph confirms that Station B has twice as many red events as Station A.

You dig into the Historical Log for those time windows. The red events start right after break periods. The root cause turns out to be a material staging issue. The station runs out of parts during breaks because nobody restocks before the line starts back up.

The fix is simple: add a restocking step to the break checklist. A week later, you pull the same reports. Station B is now at 68% green and climbing. That is the kind of improvement you can track and prove with real-time production data.

Filtering Your Data

All analytics views are filterable by three dimensions:

• Time range - look at the last hour, last shift, last week, or any custom date range.
• Team - focus on one team, a group of teams, or all teams at once.
• Color - filter by specific status colors to isolate just the red events, just the yellow events, or any combination.

Start broad and narrow down. Look at all teams for the last month to find the worst performers, then drill into those specific teams at shorter time intervals to find patterns.

Learn More

Explore the rest of our Commander guides:

• What Is Stack Light Commander?
• Getting Started with Commander
• How to Set Up the Bingo Board
• How to Set Up Map Views
• Creating Roles and Permissions