Equipment availability
Corporate and location reporting views for understanding available production capacity.
24 Years of Software Development & Integration
100% U.S.-Based
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Business First
Client case study / UniFirst / PLC integration & production monitoring
UniFirst
From equipment signals to production decisions.
How Ayoka designed a connected production monitoring system for UniFirst—bringing laundry equipment performance, availability, utilization and wash aisle productivity into one operational view.
The challenge
Production was happening. The data needed to tell the story.
01 / Equipment
Know what's running
Design visibility into equipment availability and utilization across locations.
02 / Throughput
See the wash aisle
Track pounds processed and productivity against direct labor hours.
03 / Operations
Compare performance
Make plant-level and corporate-level reporting part of a connected monitoring design.
Interactive Production Dashboard
One production picture. Multiple ways to see it.
UNIFIRST / PRODUCTION INTELLIGENCE
Equipment utilization by line
Bars show the share of available production time each line was in
use.
Plant performance breakdown
Designed for people on the floor
Useful to your production team—not just the people reading reports.
Production leaders need to see equipment availability, throughput and labor productivity in a format that supports day-to-day conversations and decisions.
Ayoka's design connects the operational detail with higher-level performance views, so plant and corporate teams can work from a shared picture.
PLC integration is the foundation
Connect the shop floor to the decisions above it.
The production monitoring design translates machine and operational information into reporting views that make equipment and process performance easier to examine.
01 / CAPTURE
Equipment and PLC data
Bring production signals into a usable data flow.
02 / ORGANIZE
Production monitoring
Structure equipment, location and production information.
03 / VISUALIZE
Performance dashboards
See availability, utilization, poundage and labor-related measures.
04 / ACT
Operational decisions
Use shared views to investigate and improve performance.
The documented work
Specific production measures. Specific reporting views.
Four connected views of the production operation, from equipment readiness to wash aisle efficiency.
Equipment utilization
Corporate and location reporting views for comparing use of production equipment.
Wash aisle poundage per direct labor hour
Location-level reporting design for production labor productivity.
Average cost per hundredweight
Location-level reporting design connecting throughput with operating cost measures.
What this proves
PLC integration is not the finish line. Visibility is what makes the connection valuable.
Operational depth
Production monitoring designed around real equipment and process metrics.
Multiple levels
Location and corporate reporting perspectives documented in the solution design.
Practical software
A system designed to make machine and production data meaningful to operations.
For manufacturers
Questions worth asking before connecting your equipment
What can PLC data tell us?
Depending on the signals and surrounding systems, it can support equipment status, availability, utilization,
throughput and production performance reporting.
What is the difference between PLC integration and SCADA?
PLC integration connects equipment controls and their data to other systems. SCADA provides supervisory
monitoring, visualization and control of industrial processes.
Can PLC data support OEE reporting?
Yes. Machine states, run time and production counts can support availability, performance and quality
calculations when the necessary inputs are available.
Can production monitoring work across multiple plants?
Yes. The UniFirst design includes location-level and corporate-level reporting views for comparing equipment
and production performance.
How does production monitoring measure labor productivity?
Production totals can be combined with recorded direct labor hours to calculate measures such as pounds
processed per direct labor hour.
What does cost per hundredweight show?
Average cost per hundredweight compares production costs against each 100 pounds processed, helping teams
assess operational efficiency.
Can existing industrial washing machines be connected without replacement?
Often, yes. The options depend on the installed PLCs, available communication protocols, and the production
signals needed for monitoring.
How can production monitoring help reduce downtime?
Production monitoring can surface machine status changes, stoppages and recurring interruptions, helping
supervisors investigate causes and prioritize corrective action.
What is the difference between equipment availability and utilization?
Availability describes when equipment is ready to operate; utilization describes how much of its available
capacity is used. Tracking both helps distinguish idle capacity from equipment constraints.
Winning Is in the WIP™
When It Has to Work. When It Has to Work on Time.
Connect your equipment, production data and people—before delays become bigger problems.
