Smart Factory
A real-time operations system for an electronics production floor, built around the fact that the physical world does not wait for a page refresh.
What it had to do
A production floor cannot wait for a spreadsheet, a refresh button, or a person to reconcile several systems at the end of a shift. Operators, materials, boards, reels, machines, and manufacturing steps each leave a trace; the useful system is the one that turns those traces into a current, understandable picture of what is happening now.
The work covered the path around that floor: production tracking and exceptions, scanner and RFID-assisted checkpoints, machine-facing state, warehouse movement, supply and purchasing context, and the dashboards people used to make sense of it. A late or invalid signal needed to be visible as a situation to resolve, not quietly become bad data.
- production state on the floor
- Live
- operator and material checkpoints
- RFID
- shared operational record
- One
Explore the system
Step through the three operational paths.
Device signals are captured at the floor, interpreted as operational work, recorded durably, and then reflected back through physical feedback and live dashboards. Labels stay deliberately generalised; the interaction boundaries are the important part.
How it moves
- 01
Capture
An operator action, scanner read, RFID checkpoint, or machine-side update produces a signal at the point where work is actually happening.
- 02
Interpret
The system gives that raw signal operational context: which work, material, person, machine, or step it belongs to — and whether it is valid in that moment.
- 03
Record
A durable operational record updates the relevant production and inventory state, leaving a trace that a later operator can understand.
- 04
Broadcast
The changed state reaches the React dashboards in real time, so the screen follows the floor instead of catching up after the fact.
- 05
Assist
Feedback and exceptions make the next action clear at the point of work, helping a wrong scan become an immediate correction rather than a downstream mystery.
- 06
Plan
Warehouse movement, supply, purchase, and estimation data add the material context needed to keep production decisions connected to reality.
The screen had to agree with the floor
Capture at the source. Make state visible. Surface exceptions early. Leave a trace.
An invalid scan
A read that does not fit the current work context is handled as an immediate exception, so the operator can correct the situation before it becomes a misleading production record.
A delayed device update
The floor-facing workflow is separated from the screen update path. State is recorded first, then broadcast, so a delayed display does not erase what happened.
A handoff between people or places
Operator and material checkpoints create an understandable trail across workstations and warehouse movement, giving the next person context without relying on memory.
What I actually did
Built the live operational path
Built the Rails and React application paths that turn floor activity into current production state, keeping the dashboard close enough to real time to support decisions while work is still in motion.
Connected physical checkpoints to software state
Implemented scanner, RFID, and machine-event workflows that attach physical activity to the right manufacturing context instead of treating a device message as useful on its own.
Made exceptions part of the workflow
Worked on validation and feedback loops around floor events so mismatches were visible and actionable at the moment they occurred, with a record for follow-up.
Kept production connected to materials
Built across the operational model for boards, reels, machines, inventory movement, supplies, and purchasing, so floor status could be understood alongside material reality.
Made the system useful in the room
Delivered dashboards and operational views for people doing the work, with live updates and enough history to answer the practical question behind most factory software: what happened, where, and what should happen next?
What changed because I was there
Factory names, floor-specific rules, device details, and internal integrations are intentionally generalised. The responsibilities and system behaviour are representative of my work.
- 01
A shared operational model
Connected production work, materials, equipment, people, and warehouse movement in one application model rather than leaving each area to its own disconnected record.
- 02
Live state over periodic refresh
Established the real-time path from operational events to floor dashboards, so current conditions could be observed while they still mattered.
- 03
Rules at the point of ingestion
Put validation around incoming operational signals, turning ambiguous or inappropriate reads into visible exceptions before they could distort downstream state.
- 04
Checkpoints that carry context
Made scanner and RFID interactions useful as operational handoffs: each one could connect a person or material to the work and place around it.
- 05
Planning stayed close to execution
Brought supply, purchasing, inventory, and estimation concerns into the same operational picture, so planning did not have to guess at what the floor was doing.