Quickstart: count your first parts

One part, one operation, and a count on the screen you can trust.

IoTFlows counts parts from the signal the machine's sensor already reports, so this setup adds no hardware. You create a part, the thing the machine makes, then an operation, one step in making it. The operation carries the two settings that turn signal into counts, and the machine has to be told which operation it is running.

Allow about 20 minutes at the keyboard, plus the time the machine needs to make ten parts.

Before you start

A machine already reporting to IoTFlows, with its running threshold set. See Quickstart: see your first machine's data.
A stopwatch or a phone, for step 4.

This page takes one part through the whole path with no branches. You do not need to load every part you make before you count anything. One part on one machine tells you whether the numbers are right, and a wrong setup repeated across 40 parts is 40 things to unpick.

Create a part

Open Production, then the Parts List tab, at /production?select=parts_list.
Click Add Part. A part called New Part appears at the top of the list, and the dashboard confirms with Part has been added.
Click the part's name, type the number your plant already uses, for example BH-4021, and press Enter.

Name the part what the traveler and the purchase order call it. Everyone who later reads a count or a job is matching it against paperwork, and a part called Bracket v2 matches nothing.

The top of the Parts List with the newly created part BH-4021 at the head of the list, GB-6610 Gear Blank beneath it, and a violet highlight on the Add Part button at the right of the toolbar

Creating a part. Use the number your plant already uses.

Nothing appeared when you clicked Add Part? The button creates the part straight away, with no dialog. If a red toast came back instead, the request failed and nothing was saved. Try again, and see Contact support and report bugs if it keeps failing.

Add an operation

An operation is one thing the machine does to the part, for example a roughing pass or a press stroke. Counts, cycle times and goals all hang off the operation, not the part.

Click + Add operation at the bottom of the part's table.
Type the operation name, for example OP10, and press Enter. The dashboard confirms with Operation has been added.
Click the Description cell and describe the step, for example Rough mill.
Click the circle in the OP column and set the step number, for example 10. The rows reorder themselves to match.

Leave QTY/OP at 1 unless one cycle of this operation finishes more than one part. A four-cavity mold is 4; a milling pass is 1.

The BH-4021 part table on the Parts List, showing the row for OP10 described as Rough mill with the inline Add operation input open beneath it, and two numbered violet callouts: 1 beside the round OP step marker reading 10 at the left of the row, 2 inside the open operation name input

Adding OP10 to a part.

Create one operation per thing the machine does differently, not one per line on the router. Two router steps that run at the same rate on the same machine count correctly as one operation, and halve your setup.

Pick a detection algorithm

A detection algorithm is the rule IoTFlows applies to the sensor's signal to decide that one cycle has finished. It is the single biggest influence on whether the count matches the floor.

Click Select Algorithm in the operation's Algorithm column.
Hover an option to read what it detects.
Click the one that fits. It saves as you pick it.

The device narrows the choice before you do. A BeamTracker takes Counter and nothing else, and a SenseAi or SenseAi Embedded takes one of the three analysis algorithms.

On a SenseAi machine nobody has measured yet, start with Discrete Analysis. It adapts to cycle-time variation instead of assuming a fixed cycle. Which to pick, and how to tell when you have picked wrong, is on Choose a production tracking algorithm.

The Algorithm cell of an operation row reading Select Algorithm with its dropdown open below it, listing the four algorithms as colored pills in order: Continuous Analysis, Discrete Analysis w/o Merge, Discrete Analysis and Counter, with a violet highlight around the open dropdown

The detection algorithm. Which one to pick is on its own page.

Set the algorithm before you go on. An operation with no algorithm never appears in the assignment list in step 5, and the modal says so.

Set the ideal cycle time

The ideal cycle time is how long one good cycle of this operation takes when the machine runs well. Continuous Analysis divides running time by it to produce the count. The other three algorithms count the signal directly and read this number for goals and pace.

Time five to ten complete cycles with a stopwatch, from the start of one to the start of the next.
Average them. Five cycles at 4:15, 4:30, 4:10, 4:25 and 4:20 average to 4:20.
Click the Ideal Operation Cycle Time cell and type the average across the hr, min and sec boxes. The box after the decimal point takes hundredths of a second, so a 1.33 second press stroke is 1 then 33.
On the two Discrete algorithms, leave the % box at its default of 10. It is how far a cycle may vary and still be read as this operation, and the cell shows the resulting range on hover.

On a Counter operation the cell opens on a rate in ops per minute instead of the clock boxes. The arrow beside it flips between the two, and both write the same number.

Enter the best sustainable cycle, not the fastest one ever recorded. Pace and the shift goal are both measured against this number, so a heroic figure makes every normal shift read as a failure. The full set of numbers this feeds, and the downtime filter that goes with it, are on Set cycle times and downtime filters.

The Algorithm and Ideal Operation Cycle Time cells of an operation row: a Discrete Analysis pill, then 0 hr, 4 min, 20 sec and 0 hundredths entered across four boxes, with a plus-or-minus 10 percent tolerance box beside them

Ideal cycle time. Use the best sustainable cycle, not the fastest ever recorded.

Assign the operation to the machine

The operation now knows how to count. The machine does not yet know it is running this operation, and until it does, nothing is counted.

Open Assets, click the machine, for example HAAS VF-2, at /assets/selected-asset/:id.
Click Auto-Detect in the toolbar. Select Auto-Detect Operations opens.
Pick the tab that matches your algorithm. A SenseAi machine shows Discrete and Continuous; a BeamTracker shows Count.
Select your operation. The Discrete tab takes checkboxes, so you can assign every discrete operation the machine runs in one pass. Continuous and Count take one operation at a time.
Click Auto-Detect. The dashboard confirms with Discrete Auto-classification Set.

The Select Auto-Detect Operations modal opened from the asset HAAS VF-2, on the Discrete tab, its list of checkbox rows scrolled to the operation OP10 on part BH-4021, which is checked. Violet highlights mark the checked row and the Auto-Detect button in the footer

Assigning the operation to the machine that runs it.

The tabs are exclusive. Selecting discrete operations clears any continuous operation the machine was set to, and the reverse, which the modal warns about above the list. Both entry points into this modal, and what to do when you have no measured cycle time at all, are on Detect operations automatically.

Run ten parts and check the count

Run the machine normally and count ten parts by hand as they come off.
Open Production, then Shift Production, at /production?select=part.
Find the row for your operation. The Progress gauge holds the good parts counted so far.
Compare the two numbers.

Validate with ten parts, not one shift. A count that is right ten times in a row is right. A shift total that happens to land near the truth hides an error that only surfaces when someone quotes a job from it.

Ten out of ten means you are done. Nine or eleven is close enough to accept and watch. Anything further out is a setup problem, not noise, and the accuracy bands that say which is which are on Validate your choice.

The Operation, Calculated Goal and Progress columns of the Shift Production board, eight operation rows deep. The last row is OP10 on part BH-4021, calculated goal 6, its Progress gauge full and green reading 10 made, with a violet highlight around that count in the center of the gauge

Ten parts run, ten counted. Validate with ten, not with a shift total.

If the count is wrong

Work through the table in order. Four of the six causes are settings you entered on this page, so rule those out before you go near the sensor.

What you see	Likely cause	Fix
The row is not on the board at all	The operation is not assigned to the machine, or the machine has not run since you assigned it	Repeat step 5 and check the confirmation toast
The count stays at zero while the machine runs	The machine reads as stopped, so there is no running signal to divide or to read cycles from	Check the machine's state on the Assets page, then Set the running and stopping thresholds
The count is roughly double	Every part rings twice and both rings are counted	Move to an algorithm that merges, see Switch to a different algorithm
The count is roughly half	Two parts run close enough together to read as one cycle	Move to an algorithm that does not merge, same page
The count is close but drifts through the shift	The ideal cycle time is off, and Continuous Analysis divides by it	Re-time the cycle and redo step 4
The count is right, the goal is not	The goal comes from the cycle time and the machine's OEE goal, not from the count	See Set OEE and utilization goals

Anything still wrong after that is on Troubleshoot inaccurate part counts.

What to do next

Repeat steps 1 to 5 for the other parts this machine runs, assigning the discrete ones together in one pass. Nobody has to touch the dashboard at a changeover after that.