Free CMMS and OEE Tracker for Metals and Foundry Plants
Track the losses specific to melt, cast, and finish operations for free today, then automate the whole loop with Fabrico when the plant is ready to scale.
The short answer
- Use the free OEE tracker at oee-tracker.html to log furnace, casting, and finishing shifts in about 2 minutes, no account needed.
- It gives you instant OEE, a downtime Pareto built around your own categories (tap delays, mould changes, scrap), and a work order board and PM schedule at no cost.
- Its honest limit: you enter data by hand, investigate causes yourself, and it runs on one device, one plant, not across a multi-site foundry group.
- When you need automatic PLC capture, computer-vision true-cause on micro-stops, and a closed loop to auto-routed work orders, book a Fabrico demo.
Metals and foundry losses don't look like a generic assembly line's losses. You lose time to furnace ramp-up and tap delays, mould and die changeovers, ladle prep, cooling holds, and scrap from cold shuts, porosity, or misruns. Most spreadsheets and whiteboards were never built to Pareto that kind of downtime, and a generic CMMS free tier treats a furnace the same as a conveyor belt.
The free OEE tracker at OEE Lab lets you log a shift in about 2 minutes with your own downtime categories, see instant OEE with availability, performance, and quality, and get a downtime Pareto that shows exactly which stop is costing the most. It also carries a work order board, a preventive-maintenance schedule, and an asset register, so you can run early CMMS discipline on furnaces and casting cells without buying anything.
It runs in your browser, no account or card required, and your data stays on your device. When manual entry, one-device scope, or the lack of automatic true-cause detection starts to cap what you can do, that is the point to look at Fabrico, the professional manufacturing-intelligence platform that automates the whole loop. See also the industries overview and the general what is OEE primer if you're new to the metric.
What you get, free
Shift logging in about 2 minutes
Log a metals or foundry shift (furnace runs, casting cycles, mould changes, scrap) and get instant OEE with the availability, performance, and quality breakdown.
Downtime Pareto built for foundry stops
Tag downtime by your own categories, tap delays, ladle prep, die changeovers, cooling holds, and see the Pareto that shows which stop is actually costing you the most time this month.
World-class 85% benchmark
Compare your OEE against the standard 85% world-class benchmark so you know where a furnace, cell, or line actually stands, not just a number in isolation.
Work orders board and PM schedule
Raise a work order the moment you spot a loss (worn tooling, a leaking mould, a slipping belt) and keep a preventive-maintenance schedule for furnaces, ladles, and casting equipment.
Asset register plus CSV/JSON export
Keep a simple register of furnaces, die-cast cells, and conveyors, then export your data whenever you want to analyze it elsewhere or bring it into a review.
Installable, shareable, no account needed
Installs as a PWA for shop-floor use, supports local sign-in with people and roles on one device, and lets you share a scorecard, all with no signup to get started.
Log one shift and the free tracker shows your OEE, your loss Pareto and how you compare to world-class. Add work orders and preventive-maintenance reminders in the same place.
Where free stops, and Fabrico begins
The free tracker is built for getting started fast and for one plant on one device. When a site gets serious about its losses, the manual steps start to cost more than they save. This is exactly where Fabrico takes over.
| Capability | Free OEE Lab tracker | Fabrico |
|---|---|---|
| Data capture | Log each furnace or casting shift by hand in about 2 minutes, data stays in your browser. | Reads OEE automatically off your PLCs, no manual entry for melt, cast, or finish lines. |
| Micro-stop cause | You investigate sub-5-minute stops (tap delays, mould jams) yourself and note the reason. | Computer vision identifies the true cause of each micro-stop, with video evidence. |
| Loss-to-fix loop | You spot the loss, then raise the work order yourself on the board. | A detected loss becomes an auto-routed work order, assigned automatically. |
| Scope and multi-site | One plant on one device and browser, best for a single furnace, cell, or shift. | Plant-wide and multi-site from one central cloud view, across foundries. |
| Integrations | Standalone, run it on its own, export data when you need it elsewhere. | Integrates with PLCs, MES, and ERP so OEE flows with your stack. |
| Access and roles | Local device sign-in with people and roles on that one device. | Org SSO with roles across the plant and a full audit trail. |
| Security posture | Data stays local in your browser, on the device you use on the floor. | EU-built with EU data residency, plus SSO, roles, and an audit trail that support audit-readiness (ISO 27001, 20000-1, 9001). |
| Reporting | Instant OEE, availability, performance, quality, a downtime Pareto, and CSV/JSON export you run yourself. | Live plant-wide dashboards plus scheduled reports delivered automatically. |
| Benchmark and scorecard | Compare to a world-class 85% benchmark and share a scorecard. | Continuous multi-site benchmarking with drill-down to line and asset. |
| Support and onboarding | Self-serve, start free with no account and no setup call. | Guided onboarding and ongoing support from the Fabrico team. |
Frequently asked questions
Is the OEE Lab tracker really free for a metals or foundry plant?
Yes. Open the free OEE tracker and log a shift, no account and no card. It runs in your browser and your data stays on your device. There is no seat cap or trial clock, it is simply free to use.
Can it handle furnace changeovers and long cycle times?
You log downtime in whatever categories fit your process: furnace changeovers, mould setup, ladle prep, tap delays, or scrap and rework. The tracker computes availability, performance, and quality from your entries and gives you an instant OEE plus a downtime Pareto so you can see what's actually eating the shift.
Does it identify why a die-cast cell or line keeps stopping for a minute or two?
No, and this is the honest limit of any manual tool. You still investigate and tag the reason for each short stop yourself. Fabrico's computer vision reads sub-5-minute micro-stops automatically and attaches video evidence of the true cause, which is the piece manual logging leaves to you.
What's the difference between this and a free CMMS trial from Limble, MaintainX, UpKeep, or Fiix?
Those are real, usable free CMMS tiers, generally strongest for getting work orders and PM schedules off paper on a mobile-first app. Most cap users, assets, or history and are built as an on-ramp to a paid plan. OEE Lab's tracker is a lighter, OEE-first tool with a work order board and PM schedule built in, free with no seat caps to plan around, and no signup required to start. See the comparison in how to choose OEE and CMMS software.
When does it make sense to move from the free tracker to Fabrico?
When manual shift logging becomes the bottleneck, when you have more than one line or one site to see at once, or when you need OEE tied into PLC/MES/ERP data with an automatic work order the moment a loss is detected. That is the point where booking a Fabrico demo makes sense.
Can I run the free tracker on the shop floor with my team?
Yes, it supports local sign-in with people and roles on one device, so an operator, a shift lead, and a maintenance tech can each log in on the same tablet or PC. It's built for a single plant on one device, if you need that view across multiple lines or sites centrally, that's a Fabrico-level capability.
When free is not enough, Fabrico is the upgrade
A metals or foundry plant that's serious about OEE runs into the same wall fast: furnace and cast-cell downtime is full of short, repeating stops that are hard to reason-code by hand, shift after shift. Fabrico reads OEE automatically off your PLCs across every furnace, cell, and line, uses computer vision to pinpoint the true cause of each micro-stop with video evidence, and closes the loop by auto-routing a work order the moment a loss is detected, all EU-built with EU data residency and support for audit-readiness against ISO 27001, 20000-1, and 9001. That's the point where manual tracking stops being enough and a live, plant-wide system starts paying for itself.
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Open the free OEE tracker · CMMS ROI calculator · Downtime cost calculator · Hidden factory calculator · How to choose OEE and CMMS software · Industries overview