Manufacturing dashboard design for monitoring production lines planned with OPT and an application

Optimized Production Technology (OPT) is a production improvement concept used to reduce bottlenecks, increase efficiency, minimize inventories, and therefore reduce overall production costs. It is essentially based on identifying and eliminating the origin of bottlenecks and unnecessary stocks in the production line. The purpose of this method is to ensure maximum JIT production flow throughout the entire production system without creating any additional inventory. By using data on production needs and production resources, OPT helps to prepare near-optimal work schedules for all work centers in the enterprise, taking into account the priorities and capacity constraints. OPT determines priorities for each activity by using important criteria such as the most profitable product-mix, delivery dates, safety stock levels, bottleneck benches, and workstations. Then, according to the current workload, it identifies the capacity bottlenecks. In the last stage, it prepares the production schedule for each job, taking into consideration the current bottlenecks. In this study, a digital dashboard with many KPIs was designed by harmonizing OPT planning and lean philosophy and including standard color codes. The designed system has been explained through case studies, and the benefits have been discussed. The newly developed dashboard provides a healthy and effective data flow to all employees at the factory, as well as providing instant digital monitoring. The digital dashboard that is created by PHP, SQL, MS Excel, and VBA development tools and along with smart board integration, for all employees to manage the process more efficiently has been made available on an intranet platform.