Shop Floor & Display Board
Touch-optimized kiosk interface for production workers and TV display for shop floor visibility. Navigate with Ctrl+5 (Display Board) or Ctrl+6 (Shop Floor).
Shop Floor Kiosk
The Shop Floor page is a touch-optimized kiosk interface designed for use by production workers on the shop floor. It uses large buttons and simplified controls so workers can interact with the system using a touchscreen, tablet, or any input device — even with gloves on.
Key design principles:
- 44px minimum touch targets — All buttons and interactive elements meet or exceed the 44px touch target guideline, ensuring reliable tap accuracy on touchscreens
- Search bar — Quickly find entries by reference number, customer, or keywords. Results update as you type.
- Pipeline filter — Filter entries by a specific pipeline when your project uses multiple pipelines
- Live clock — A large clock in the header displays the current time, updated every second. Uses your system's locale format for both time and date. Helps workers track shift times without needing to look away from the screen.
- Stage sections — Entries are organized by their current pipeline stage, with each stage shown as a section header. Workers can scan the page to find their jobs by looking under the relevant stage.
At the bottom of the page, a floating pipeline navigation bar provides quick-jump buttons to each pipeline stage. Tap a stage name to scroll directly to that section — useful on a long page with many entries across multiple stages.
Entry Cards
Each entry on the Shop Floor page is displayed as a card with the essential information workers need at a glance:
- Reference number — The job's unique identifier, displayed prominently at the top of the card
- Customer name — Who the job is for
- PO number — The purchase order number, if available
- Priority badge — A colored badge indicating the entry's priority level (Rush, High, Normal, Low)
- Due date — When the job is due, with color coding (red for overdue, yellow for due soon, green for on track)
- Materials status — Shows whether materials are allocated and ready for the job
Each card provides two main action buttons:
| Button | Action |
|---|---|
| Advance | One-tap advancement to the next pipeline stage. This is the primary action for workers — when a job moves to the next step in production, a single tap records the stage change, updates the audit trail, and moves the card to the next stage section. |
| Menu | Opens a secondary menu with additional options:
|
Time Tracking (Clock In/Out)
The Shop Floor page includes built-in time tracking so workers can log their hours against specific jobs directly from the kiosk interface.
Clocking In
- Find the entry card for the job you are starting to work on
- Tap the green Clock In button on the card
- A time entry record is created with your username and the current timestamp as the start time
- The card updates to show an active work session indicator
Clocking Out
- When you finish working on the job, tap the red Clock Out button that replaced the Clock In button
- A dialog prompts you to add optional notes about the work performed (e.g., "Completed welding on panel A" or "Waiting on hardware")
- The time entry is completed with the end time recorded
Viewing Timesheet Reports
Time entry data can be reviewed and exported through the Timesheet Report. Navigate to Tools > Timesheet Report in the menu bar. The report allows you to:
- Filter by date range and worker
- See total hours per worker, per entry, and per day
- Export the report to PDF for payroll or job costing purposes
Multi-Pipeline Grouping
When your project uses multiple pipelines (e.g., one for production jobs and another for repair orders), the Shop Floor page adapts its layout to keep entries organized:
All Pipelines View
When the pipeline filter is set to All Pipelines, the page displays pipeline headers with grouped stages underneath. Each pipeline gets its own section with the pipeline name as a header, and that pipeline's stages listed beneath it. This prevents confusion when different pipelines share similar stage names (e.g., both might have a "QC" stage).
Single Pipeline View
When you select a specific pipeline from the filter dropdown, only that pipeline's stages are shown. The pipeline header is removed since there is no ambiguity, and the layout is cleaner and more focused.
Floating Undo Panel
After advancing an entry to the next pipeline stage, a floating undo panel appears at the bottom of the screen. This provides a safety net in case the Advance button was tapped by mistake.
How the undo panel works:
- The panel appears immediately after a stage advance
- It remains visible for 6 seconds, then fades out over 2 seconds (8 seconds total)
- The panel shows which entry was advanced and which stage it was moved to
- Click the Undo button to immediately revert the stage change
- If you do nothing, the panel disappears and the advance stands
Undo reverts both the pipeline stage and the audit trail entry. It is as if the advance never happened.
Display Board
The Display Board (Ctrl+5) is designed to run on a wall-mounted TV or large monitor on the production floor. It provides a hands-free, auto-rotating overview of your shop's status that everyone can see at a glance.
Design
The Display Board uses a dark theme optimized for readability at a distance on large screens. Text is larger than on other pages, and high-contrast colors ensure visibility even in bright shop floor lighting.
Three Rotating Views
The Display Board automatically cycles through three views, spending 15 seconds on each:
1. Kanban Board
A column-per-stage layout showing entry cards organized by pipeline stage. Each column is capped at 20 cards to maintain readability. The 5 most recently completed entries are shown in the completed column, so the team can see what just finished.
2. KPI Dashboard
Large metric cards showing key numbers: total active entries, entries due today, overdue count, SLA compliance, and other summary statistics. A pipeline bar along the bottom shows the distribution of entries across stages.
3. Alerts & Deadlines
Three columns highlighting entries that need attention:
- Overdue — Entries past their due date, sorted by urgency
- Due Today — Entries due today that have not yet reached a completed stage
- Due This Week — Upcoming entries due within the next 7 days
Controls
Although the Display Board is designed for hands-free operation, it includes a minimal set of controls:
- Auto-rotate toggle — Turn automatic view cycling on or off. When off, the board stays on the current view.
- Previous / Next — Manually switch between the three views
- Live clock — Current time displayed in the header, matching the system locale
Display Board Refresh
The Display Board automatically refreshes its data every 15 seconds to keep the information current. This refresh interval applies in both SQLite (solo) and SQL Server (team) modes.
The refresh happens silently in the background — the display does not flicker or reset the rotation cycle. If data changes between refreshes (e.g., a worker advances a job), the change appears on the next refresh cycle.