Industries

February 20, 2025

4 untapped data types trapped on factory machines

Unlock hidden machine data to optimize performance, reduce downtime, and drive smarter decisions.

Pete Garafano
Consulting Engineer

While your factory machines continuously generate valuable performance data, traditional SCADA systems, PLCs, and standalone equipment often trap these insights, making data-driven decision-making a complex, and potentially costly, endeavor. Industrial control systems from different vendors often don't communicate effectively, creating data silos that leave management without real-time visibility into operations.

Viam, an engineering platform, can now bridge this gap without requiring hardware replacement. What if you could unlock data from any machine on your factory floor? How might that change your business?

1. Real-time machine health metrics

Industrial control systems often lack comprehensive data access capabilities, leaving manufacturers with limited visibility into equipment conditions.

With greater visibility, you could enable:

• comprehensive machine health monitoring
• predictive maintenance capabilities
• reduction in unexpected downtime

2. True production capacity & bottlenecks

Identify hidden capacity constraints that traditional Manufacturing Execution Systems (MES) consistently miss.

With new AI capabilities, you can implement:

• advanced bottleneck identification
• data-driven capacity optimization
• throughput increase without capital investment

3. Quality control indicators

Move beyond basic pass/fail data trapped in siloed quality control systems. With Viam, you can now spot subtle performance patterns:

• advanced pattern recognition in sensor data
• deeper quality insights beyond traditional metrics
• potential reduction in scrap rates using previously inaccessible data

4. Cross-plant performance analysis

Break down data silos between facilities running different control systems, enabling:

• enterprise-wide performance benchmarking
• best practice identification and replication
• potential performance improvement across manufacturing networks

See how you can unlock the full potential of your factory data—request a demo today.

Request a Demo

Unlocking data from existing machinery

The future of manufacturing lies not in wholesale equipment replacement, but in intelligently extracting value from existing assets. Legacy industrial equipment no longer needs to be a data black box. By enabling real-time cloud connectivity and seamless integration between different vendors' systems, manufacturers can transform old machines into intelligent, connected systems that provide unprecedented operational insights. Furthermore, Viam’s platform supports Windows-based industrial systems.

The most compelling advantage is future-proofing: with AI and machine learning, businesses can unlock performance improvements, reduce operational costs, and stay competitive in an increasingly data-driven manufacturing landscape with Viam.

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