Hour-by-hour
Hour-by-Hour Board Template: What Goes in Each Column
The six columns of a working hour-by-hour board template, what each is for, why cumulative gap beats the hourly number, and how to set plan when takt moves.
Hour-by-hour tracking
Hour-by-hour production tracking with the running gap
Each cell gets a grid with one column per hour of the shift. The rows are Plan, Actual and Cumulative Δ. Someone at the cell types the actual each hour. A miss at 9 shows at 10, not at the end of the shift.
Free forever: 1 department, 2 cells, 1 user · No card
Why hour-by-hour on paper or a whiteboard falls apart
Nobody keeps the running gap.
On paper the gap is one more sum every hour. It gets done at 2 PM, if at all. By then the hour lost at 9 can't be won back.
Yesterday is gone.
The whiteboard gets wiped at shift change. The paper sheet goes in a drawer. Ask how Tuesday went and nobody can find it.
Seeing the department means a walk.
To know where the department stands at 10 AM, someone has to go read every cell's sheet.
How hour-by-hour works in ShopBoard
Set the hourly plan once
The hour columns come from the shift times, so 06:00 to 14:00 gets eight. A supervisor or manager opens ⚙ Schedule and types the plan for each hour on that cell. That plan fills the Plan row every day until an hour gets its own number.
Type the actual at the cell
Tap an hour once it has started. Type the actual and save with ✓. Any operator, supervisor or manager can do it. Use the cell page or the cell's Wall screen, which says "Tap a slot to log actuals". Hours that haven't started stay locked.
Read the color and the running gap
At or above plan is green. From 90% to just under plan is amber. Below 90% is red. Cumulative Δ adds up actual minus plan for every hour entered so far. You see -3 without doing the math.
Page back through past days
Arrows, a date picker and a Today button page through past days. Past hours stay editable, so a late number can still go in.
See the whole department on one screen
The department board shows a small HxH bar chart for each cell: up to eight bars, each one hour's actual against plan. Bars under plan are dimmed. After Apply Schedule, hours not entered yet show as short dim bars. Both shifts on a cell share the eight bars. The charts show once a cell in the department has an SQDC entry for the day. Until then the board reads "No data". The department Wall adds up plan and actual for the current hour across its cells. It shows % to plan and reloads every 60 seconds.
Imports, a printable sheet and a calculator
CSV import for history
A manager can import hour-by-hour history from a CSV file, or a tab-separated text file saved from Excel. Each row is one cell's hour on one date, with its plan and actual.
A free printable sheet
Still on paper? Print the free hour-by-hour board. It has plan and actual columns, the running gap and a reason code. No email asked.
Free templates →The lost hour calculator
Want the gap in dollars? Put one cell's numbers into the lost hour calculator. It shows the margin that lost minutes cost per month and per year.
Lost hour calculator →
What hour-by-hour in ShopBoard doesn't do
- It doesn't set your Delivery score. Delivery is its own daily entry.
- Counts and plans are typed in or imported from a CSV. Nothing comes from machines, and the plan is never worked out from takt.
- There's no reason code on a missed hour. Log an issue for the why. It isn't linked to the hour.
- There's no export or print of hour-by-hour data. It's import only.
- On a night shift, the hours after midnight sit under the day the shift started. Open the board after midnight and you step back a day to enter them.
- A shift can be 12 hours at most. Hours past the 12th don't save, and the board says so.
- Past hours aren't locked. Anyone on the account can change any hour, plan included. There's no edit history.
- There are no alerts. A cell that falls behind turns red on screen. Nobody gets a text.
- Nothing updates live. A number typed on one screen shows on a cell's Wall only after a page reload.
- The department Wall takes the current hour from one cell's shift. Cells on other start times won't line up there, and it doesn't follow a night shift past midnight.
- An overtime hour with no plan shows red even if it made parts.
Questions
Does hour-by-hour feed the Delivery number on the SQDC board?
No. Delivery is its own entry, a target % and an actual % typed for the day. The day panel shows the hour grid under an "Hour by Hour — Delivery" heading. Nothing adds the hours into the Delivery card.
Who enters the actuals, and on what?
Any operator, supervisor or manager. Tap a started hour on the cell page or the cell's Wall view, in a browser. A PC at the line or a landscape touchscreen works best. A phone works, but the grid scrolls sideways and the buttons are small.
Can it pull counts from my machines?
No. Actuals are typed at the cell or imported from a CSV by a manager. There's no PLC, MES or ERP connection.
Does it handle a night shift?
Yes. A 22:00 to 06:00 shift gets hour columns from 10PM to 5AM, kept under the day the shift started. If you open the board after midnight, step back a day to enter them. A shift can run up to 12 hours.
Is hour-by-hour on the Free plan?
Yes. It's a core module on every plan. Free covers 1 department, 2 cells and 1 user.
Read more
- Hour-by-hour
Hour-by-Hour Production Tracking: Why Most Plants Quit After a Month
Hour-by-hour tracking is one of the highest-leverage habits in daily management, and one of the first to get abandoned. Here's why, and what makes it stick.
- Meetings and routines
The Tier 1 Meeting Agenda That Fits in 10 Minutes
A minute-by-minute tier 1 meeting agenda for a production cell: the order, the time budget, who talks, who stays quiet, and what to cut when it runs long.
Try it on one cell first.
Sample board on your first login. Your own cell in about 10 minutes.