OEE Software for Chemical and Process Manufacturing

Downtime tracking on reactors and process lines

Each stop on a connected asset is recorded from its machine signal, and the operator adds the cause from a tablet or phone. Downtime grouped by cause then shows which stops take the most hours on each reactor and line.

Time between batches

Charging, discharging and cleaning between batches keep a reactor from making product. With those stops tagged by cause, you see how long the gap between batches is on each vessel, and whether a new routine makes it shorter.

Slow running on continuous units

A continuous unit rarely stops outright: it loses output when it runs below its rated rate after a disturbance or a grade change. That loss lands in the Performance figure, so it no longer hides behind a unit that never shows as stopped.

Micro-stops on filling lines

Drum fillers, bagging machines and palletizers often halt for only seconds, too briefly to reach a shift report. Fabrico detects these micro-stops automatically and totals them per machine.

Shutdowns and other expected stops

A planned shutdown or a cleaning campaign is a stop you expect, not a failure. Tagged with its own cause, it is listed separately, so the shutdown weeks do not distort the downtime figures for the rest of the year.

See how stops are recorded and analyzed on our downtime tracking software page.

Machine monitoring on old and new equipment

Handwritten logs miss short stops and round off the long ones, so Fabrico takes its figures from the equipment itself. Each asset is connected in the way it allows, and one site can mix the options.

PLC: run, stop and count signals from the controller of a reactor, a continuous unit or a filling line.

IoT sensor: for an older pump, compressor or mixer with no usable PLC output, a sensor reports when it runs and when it stops.

Camera: computer vision counts output on manual steps, such as a drum or bag filling station worked by hand.

All three feed the same OEE dashboard. Our machine monitoring software page covers each option in more depth.

Several sites in one view

Chemical groups often make the same products at more than one site. In a group account the sites share a multi-plant view, while cross-plant comparison reports benchmark them against each other.

Control: role-based access control decides who sees and edits what, and an audit log records who changed what.

Built-in CMMS for pumps, reactors and shutdowns

Many stops in a chemical plant start with the equipment around the process, such as a leaking pump seal or a tripped compressor. That is why the maintenance work sits in the same system as the OEE figures.

Repairs on pumps and rotating equipment

Each pump, compressor, reactor and heat exchanger has its own record in the machine registry, with its files and repair history. A QR code on the asset opens that record on a phone.

If a stop calls for a repair, the shift lead opens a work order straight from the stop, and a push notification reaches the technician. Emergency jobs record reaction time, and MTTR, MTBF and a list of the assets with the most repairs point to the pumps worth a closer look.

Shutdown work and safety-relevant inspections

Safety-relevant checks, such as relief valve tests or pressure vessel inspections, sit in the annual PM plan as recurring tasks, each with its date on the calendar. Jobs that need the unit down are dragged onto the shutdown days, and a warning shows when a technician is over-allocated.

Approval workflows add a sign-off where a job needs one. Spare parts such as seals, bearings and gaskets are kept with min and max levels, and what a job consumes is booked to its work order.

Questions chemical plants ask

Does Fabrico control the process or replace our SCADA? No, Fabrico does not control the process and is not a SCADA or DCS replacement.

It reads machine data to measure OEE and downtime, and the control room keeps running the plant as before.

Is Fabrico a full MES? No, it is the monitoring and OEE layer of MES, with the maintenance work behind the stops built in.

Planning and scheduling production is on our roadmap, not part of the product today.

How long until OEE runs on our units? The OEE devices are installed and connected in about 1 month, and a full rollout of the plant needs 3 to 4 months.

Does Fabrico work with SAP? Yes: SAP PM syncs in both directions and SAP S/4HANA is integrated, while Dynamics, Oracle or another ERP is connected as a custom integration.

For anything else there is a REST API, webhooks and Excel or CSV export.

How is our plant data protected? Fabrico holds ISO/IEC 27001 certification, keeps data in the AWS EU region under GDPR with a DPA, and encrypts it both at rest and in transit.

Backups run every day, and RTO and RPO are both 4 hours.

What does an hour of downtime cost us? Our cost of downtime calculator puts a price on your production losses, starting from your revenue, gross margin and current OEE.

What happens in a demo? It is a 30 minute conversation with a Fabrico consultant, no commitment, to talk through your reactors and lines.

What you share in it is handled under ISO 27001.

Weighing up several tools? See our OEE software comparison, or contact us about your own site.