You will have fun doing this project. We implemented a system like this in a large Chrysler parts machining plant 30 years ago. Getting the cycle start, cycle stop, cycle time, downtime, etc. to work was quite a bit more work than anyone wanted to admit. No one agreed with how things were being done. By no one I mean production, engineering, IT, maintenance, & the union.
We worked for a system integrator for Chrysler’s corporate IT department out of Detroit and they fought tool & nail with the local plant people. Of course, we were caught in the middle trying to get access to the machines, getting blamed for screwing up the PLC programs, etc. We would have a program working ok and come back a few days later to find maintenance had reloaded an old program.
This was back in early 1990’s and many PLC’s still used the tape cartridges. Program version control was still a pipe dream.
All numbers were stored in the PLC and pushed up to a large data concentrator PC. Monitors running Windows 2.0 (yes, 2.0) displayed the results.
You might think that all of these displays would be uniform, but no! We found out that monitors in dept. A should not be displayed in dept. B because if B was down then dept. A would slow down their production knowing that Dept. B couldn’t handle the flow.
Two years our of my life but worked a lot of OT.
