Free reference
The factory handbook
A working reference for people who run small and mid-sized manufacturing units. Standard formulas, calculators you can use on the page, and templates you can print today. Nothing here needs our software, an account or an email address.
Contents
What is in the handbook
H01
OEE calculator and guide
Calculate OEE from one shift of data: the formula for availability, performance and quality, a worked example, the six big losses and common mistakes.
H02
Shop-floor formulas
Standard shop-floor formulas, each with a worked example and a calculator: takt time, first pass yield, DPMO, Cp and Cpk, MTBF, MTTR and TEEP.
H03
Getting data out of machines
Five ways to collect data from CNC machines and PLCs, from operator entry to Modbus, MTConnect, OPC UA and FANUC FOCAS, and what to ask your machine builder.
H04
Job card and stop-code templates
A printable production job card, starter stop reason codes mapped to OEE losses, and a daily production report. Free to print or download as CSV.
H05
Manufacturing glossary
Plain-language definitions of 55 manufacturing terms: OEE, takt time, Cpk, PPAP, FMEA, SMED, kanban, MES, MTBF and more. Written for plant owners and supervisors.
Ground rules
How the handbook is written
We wrote this because the same questions come up on every shop floor we visit, and most of the answers online are either a sales page or a formula with no example.
- Standard formulas only
- Every formula is the textbook one, shown in full, with a worked example you can check by hand. The calculators run the same arithmetic in your browser and send nothing to us.
- Sources are named
- Where a definition or a number comes from a book, a standards body or a machine builder, the page says so and links to it.
- No invented benchmarks
- We do not publish “industry average” figures we cannot source. Where a commonly quoted number has a caveat, the caveat is on the page.
- Templates are starting points
- The job card and the stop code list are ours. Change them to fit your plant.
- Corrections are welcome
- Each page carries the date it was last reviewed. If something is wrong or out of date, write to deep@deda.systems.
Everything in this handbook can be done on paper. When you want it captured at the machine and on a screen during the shift, that is what we build for plants.
Next step
Want these numbers live?
Everything in the handbook can be done on paper. When you want it captured at the machine and on a screen during the shift, that is what we build. Thirty minutes on a call is usually enough to tell whether it is worth doing.
- 30 min
- Free first call, with an engineer
- 2–4 days
- On your floor before any proposal
- Week 1
- First working demo, on your own data
- Fixed
- Scope, timeline and price, agreed before we build
- Zero
- Existing systems replaced