Andon Functional Example

Andon Event Functional Example

General Introduction to Tulip Functional Examples

Use functional example apps in Tulip to learn the best practices of app building to manage specific use cases on your shop floor. They are not ready-to-use solutions, but you can copy and paste the template steps that you can find in the step group “Steps to copy and paste to your app” to compose your own andon event app.

While reading this article, you should follow along with the app opened in the Tulip App Editor.

You should also note that in order to successfully use this app you should be comfortable with a few advanced topics in Tulip:

• Tulip tables and table data manipulation
• Table queries and aggregations
• Analytics

The following Tulip University courses provide you with all the information you need on these topics:

• Tulip Essentials (Complete introduction to Tulip and basic app building)
• Feature Deep-Dive: Tulip Tables
• Feature Deep-Dive: Tulip Queries
• Tulip for Dashboard Builders

Andon Events Functional Example

The andon light functional example is organized around three main step groups: “Documentation”, “App”, and “Steps to copy and paste to your app.” Each of these has a specific goal.

Documentation: The steps give you a brief overview of the app’s process flow and explain the data model behind the app.

App: Each of the steps showcases a specific functionality that is relevant for an andon management system:

1. Create/clear andon events
2. Update information of andon events
3. Monitor the shop floor status by location
4. Draw some key metrics from the data gathered on andon events

This functional example teaches you how to combine these functions to build an effective solution for your use case.

Steps to copy and paste to your app: When you are building your own andon solution, you can copy and paste some of these steps as no-code components. These can be used in conjunction with Tulip templates for the base layout. Note that you’ll have to reconfigure both Queries and Aggregations.

Andon Events - “Documentation” Step Group

Andon Events in Tulip

Andon alerts empower frontline workers to quickly signal issues on the shopfloor and stop operations. When an andon alert is triggered and an andon event created at a specific location, this will also trigger some sort of real time alerting system. This could be an e-mail or SMS to the shop floor supervisor or manager, or it could involve physical devices such as stacked or smart lights that will visually signal the presence of an andon event. The goal is to take corrective action as soon as possible.

The functions to manage andon events with Tulip revolve around one single table: [Andon Events]. Every time an andon event is created, an entry is added to the table. You can then manage those entries and analyze their data real time for a number of purposes: management of assignees, monitoring the shopfloor, and analyzing performance.

Data

Andon events are successfully managed in Tulip with just one Table: [Andon Events]. This table stores all the necessary information to create, clear, manage, and analyze andon events on your shop floor. The [Andon Event] table is quite comprehensive, and not all the fields are necessary to set up a functioning andon system with a Tulip app.

Required fields:

Optional fields:

How to Manage Andon Events - “App” Step Group

1 - Creating/ Clearing Andon Events

Frontline workers should be able to quickly create and clear an andon event for a specific location, for example: by clicking on a single button. Details about the andon event can be supplied at a later moment.

Our Triggers behind creating/clearing events in the functional example:

1. Select the location from the dropdown menu for the andon event. This will determine whether there is an open andon for the selected location or not.

Selecting a location from the dropdown menu loads the latest andon event open for that location (if there is any).

2a. If there’s an open andon, we clear any current data loaded in the placeholder and instead load the aggregation data from “Open Andon ID”.

Trigger logic “Load Current Andon” in the dropdown menu for selecting the location of the andon.

Table query to retrieve “in progress” events by location.

Table aggregation to retrieve the ID of the latest open event by location.

2b. If there’s no open andon for that location, no record will be loaded.

3. Click on Create/Clear Andon for the selected location.

4a. If there is no andon event open for the current location, a table record will be created when clicking on the “Create/Clear Andon” button. The andon light widget turns red to signal the andon event.

Trigger logic “Create Event Record” in the Create/Clear button event if there is no open andon

The andon light custom widget turns red for the location Rotor Assembly when we open the andon event

4b. If there is an andon event open for the current location, the same button will clear the open andon event. The andon light custom widget will turn green and the app will complete.

Trigger logic “Create Event Record” in the Create/Clear button event if there is an open andon at that location

The andon light custom widget turns green again for the location Rotor Assembly when we clear the andon event

5. Update Details. You can update details of open andon events at any time. When you select a location with an open andon event, use the form to the left to change select details (you can customize the form to contain any additional detail you might want to track).

Trigger logic for updating the details of the current andon event loaded in the placeholder

The pane to update the details of the andon event open for the current location (in this case, “Final Assembly”). You can customize this form in your app to allow the user to update any field of your choice in the [Andon Events] table.

2 - Assign Andon Events

Supervisors will want to assign the resolution of andons to different workers. They can do so by creating an app (or a step within an andon system management app) that manages andon events. An easy way to configure this:

1. Add an interactive table widget and connect it to [Andon Events] table. Use the filters in the editor pane to filter the table to show only unassigned and open events.

2. Add a drop down and connect it to the All Users table that comes with any Tulip instance. The user can select the assignee among that list.

3. Add a button to store the Assignee data.

4. When configuring the trigger logic, you can add an action to notify the user to whom an andon event has been assigned by using the e-mail or SMS notification action.

3 - Andon Current Status

Set up a real time monitoring of the shopfloor andons by location with a simple dashboard. To make it more visually effective, we used the andon light custom widget and connected it to the [Andon Events] table. Every time that a new event is logged in and its status is set to IN PROGRESS, we store a corresponding value of 1 in the field “Andon Status Code.”

For example, if we have an open event in the location “Final Assembly”:

In order to configure the andon light custom widget for each location, you should create one query and one table aggregation that will return the status for the latest event associated with the specific location. Achieve this by:

1. In the Tables page of your instance create this query and this table aggregation.
   

Top Gif: How to configure the table query to get the latest in-progress event at a specific location. Settings:
Filters (all):
Status = IN PROGRESS
Location = App Input
Sort: N/A
Limit: 1
Bottom Gif: How to configure the table aggregation to get the status of the latest in progress event at a specific location. We are retrieving data from ‘Andon Status Code’ rather than ‘Andon Status’ because the custom widget takes numeric input. Settings:
Calculation: Mode
Field: Andon Status Code

2. In the Records pane of your app editor, add the query and the aggregation to the [Andon Events] table for each location by configuring the location name as static value in the query input.

Top image: Table Query added to the Record pane of the app editor. Replicate this for every location. Settings:
Define Filters: Location = [location assigned to the widget] (static value)
Bottom image: Table Aggregation that we just created, added to the table query.

4 - Andon Analysis
Records of Andon Events can be useful to track performance of the shopfloor on the long term and, depending on the information collected in the [Andon Events] table, supply good data for historic and root cause analysis.

In this functional example we focused on the number of andons and the duration of andons as basic metrics that can help you better understand how well processes are running on the shopfloor and where the key weaknesses are. For example:

• Where are most andon events happening?
• What’s causing most andon events?
• What andon events take the longest to solve?
• Where do the longest andon events occur?

Quick exercise to get started
Create a simple andon solution app with just two steps:

Step 1: Andon terminal.

1. Copy and paste the step “Create/Clear Andon - Template” into your app.
2. Configure a table query and a table aggregation to retrieve the ID of the andon event open depending on the location name.

Step 2: Shop floor dashboard updated in real time:

1. Copy and paste the step "Shopfloor Status - Template" in your app.
2. Configure table queries and aggregations to retrieve the andon status at the location.

If you successfully build this app, you will already have a solid foundation for your Andon management solution.