Glossary
The words behind smart factory software, in plain language.
The words you'll meet the moment you start measuring your floor — and how Blitz turns your factory into an agent that senses, thinks and speaks.
- Production monitoring
- Watching, in real time, whether each machine is running, idle or stopped — without anyone writing it down. A small sensor reports each machine's state automatically, so your floor's live status shows on screen the moment it changes. This is the agent's sense.
- Production tracking
- Counting how much each machine actually made — units, run-length or weight — over a shift, day or order. Where monitoring answers “is it running?”, tracking answers “how much did it make?” — worked out automatically from run time, with no operator logbook.
- OEE — Overall Equipment Effectiveness
- A single score for how well a machine is used, multiplying availability (how much planned time it ran), performance (speed vs rated) and quality (how much output was good). A perfect 100% means always running, full speed, zero rejects — so your real number shows exactly where the slack is.
- Uptime & utilisation
- Uptime is the time a machine was actually running. Utilisation is that uptime as a percentage of the time it could have run — 9 hours out of a 12-hour shift is 75%. Together: how much of the time you paid for turned into output.
- Downtime
- Any period a machine should have been running but was not — a breakdown, waiting for material, a changeover or an unplanned stop. Every stop is logged automatically with its start time and duration, so you see exactly how long each one lasted and what it cost.
- Idle time
- When a machine is switched on and available but not producing — set up but waiting, between jobs, or staffed but not started. A quiet drain on capacity: nothing looks broken, the machine simply isn't earning. Monitoring separates it from running and from full downtime — each has a different fix.
- True cost per unit
- The all-in cost of making one unit — material, energy, labour and overhead added together — not material alone. The last three hide in monthly bills and rarely get pinned to a unit. Know it, and you price from fact and see which products actually make money. See how Blitz builds it up.
- Real-time costing
- Working out cost as production happens, instead of waiting for month-end. As each machine runs, Blitz tallies the material, energy, labour and overhead it consumed — so the true cost per unit is current today, not a reconstruction weeks later. This is the agent's thinking.
- Changeover
- Switching a machine from making one product to another — changing material, tooling or settings. The machine usually stops, so that time is lost production. Tracking changeovers shows where short and sample runs quietly eat capacity: a machine busy all day yet making very little.
- MES vs ERP
- ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) runs the business side — orders, inventory, invoicing, accounts. MES (Manufacturing Execution System) runs the floor side — what each machine is doing now and how much it made. Traditional MES and ERP are built for large plants: expensive and heavy. Blitz distils the useful parts of both into one system — floor-level visibility plus cost and profit per unit — without the cost or complexity, hosted and managed for you, live the same day. It complements your accounts software, it doesn't replace it.
- GRN / material intake
- A GRN — goods-receipt note — records what actually arrived against a supplier bill at the gate, so the books match the loading bay. Blitz makes it effortless: photograph the bill the moment material lands, check-and-approve, and hand clean entries straight to accounts — no re-typing, no pile of slips. The “gate-to-books” half of the suite, in every plan and able to run on its own.
- Agent (AI agent)
- Software that works toward a goal on its own — not a chatbot that only answers when you ask. You set the goal; the agent watches your live data, decides when something's crossed the line you set, reaches out to the right people, and can take steps you've approved. In Blitz that agent is Jarvis — it senses through your machines, thinks through Blitz, and speaks to you.
- Blitz vs a single app
- A single app answers one question; the suite turns the whole factory into an agent. Three parts on one source of truth: the floor (production and true cost), material intake (gate to books) and Jarvis (the AI agent that answers anything, watches what matters and reaches you, and briefs you). Two plans — Blitz (the whole platform) and Blitz Plus (adds Jarvis). Why a suite, not bits.
- Hosted & managed
- We run the software for you — the servers, the security, the updates — so there's nothing to install and no IT team to hire. Your factory just needs its regular internet connection, and you see your floor live from anywhere: the office, home or the road. Your data stays yours — export it any time, never sold or shared.
Read a little more
Where to go next.
True cost per unit
Material, energy, labour and overhead — added up automatically for every unit you make.
How it works →Meet Jarvis
The AI agent that tells you what needs you, answers anything in plain language and briefs you.
See Jarvis →Owner FAQ
Setup, your data, the plans, material intake and Jarvis — the questions owners ask first, answered plainly.
Read the FAQ →See these numbers on your own floor.
Book a 20-minute demo. Bring your toughest question — we'll show you the answer live, on your own machines.