Advice on Designing HMI for Digital Scrap Tracking Proof of Concept

Ignition
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Hey Everyone,

I hope you've all had a great week!

I'm planning to create a basic proof of value concept for digital scrap tracking in our manufacturing plant. I aim to develop 2-3 dashboards that look something like this:

Scrap Dashboard.drawio
Scrap Dashboard.drawio1001×751 30.2 KB

I have some experience using Ignition but not much in the design aspect. I'm wondering what would be the easiest way to design this? Since I'm unsure about the device (PC or tablet) it will be used on, I thought about using Perspective with flex containers, but I lack experience in design.

I've looked into Inductive University, but I'm keen to hear the community's thoughts and experiences.

Thanks everyone!

2

Writing a user specification is usually a good start. Then design the interface.

  • What information is being conveyed to the reader?
  • Is it historical, live or shift?
  • Who are users? If management are using it are they interested in different metrics than the operators?
  • Is it going to be text (numerical) or graphic or both?
  • Will printouts be required?
  • Have you got a company theme that should be followed?
  • You have buttons on the view but dashboards generally wouldn't. Data entry would be done on another view with access control.
  • How many machines or lines have to appear on the dashboard?
  • What happens if more machines or lines are added to the factory? Will you be able to use a carousel or would the user have to scroll?

Write your specification and post it here.

1 Like
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@Transistor appricate the respones.

  • What information is being conveyed to the reader?

    • Current count of scrap parts.

  • Is it historical, live, or shift?

    • Live, but will be fed to Canary.

  • Who are the users? If management is using it, are they interested in different metrics than the operators?

    • At this stage, as a POC in Ignition, just operators. Canary will display other metrics to the required users.

  • Is it going to be text (numerical), graphic, or both?

    • Numerical with ideally a photo or image.

  • Will printouts be required?

    • No.

  • Have you got a company theme that should be followed?

    • No specific theme.

  • You have buttons on the view, but dashboards generally wouldn't. Data entry would be done on another view with access control.

    • Okay, so I was being loose with my terms, apologies. Ignition is used to capture the info as an HMI, with Canary being used to display that info as a dashboard.

  • How many machines or lines have to appear on the dashboard?

    • At this stage, focusing on the top 4-5 scrap contributors.

  • What happens if more machines or lines are added to the factory? Will you be able to use a carousel or would the user have to scroll?

    • Not required at this stage; focusing on the top 4-5 scrap contributors.

Looking forward to your response.