FAQ
Grouped by the situation you are in: working alongside Vorne XL boards, getting alerts out, reporting on the data, asking AI about it, hosting it, having something built, and paying for it. Each group links to the page that covers it in depth.
Where this sits next to the boards on your lines, and what it does that they do not.
No. OEE IntelliSuite is designed to complement Vorne XL. Vorne remains strong at machine and line performance visibility, while IntelliSuite adds workforce, workflow, reporting, and integration layers around that data.
V1 and V2 production data, side by side, so a plant part-way through a rollout still reports on one set of numbers. V1 and V2 describe the generation of the data rather than the model of the box on the wall, so the model number on the wall is not what tells you which one a line is producing. Ask us and we will tell you from what your boards report.
No. It is separate software built to read Vorne XL production data. Vorne, XL and the board names are Vorne's own trademarks, used here to say what our software works with.
Because many manufacturers need more than board-level visibility. They want to connect machine performance to jobs, operators, shift handoffs, comments, schedules, and business systems.
XL Touch improves interaction at the board. OEE IntelliSuite extends the workflow around the board with software experiences for operators, supervisors, and support staff across workstations, tablets, and phones.
Vorne captures machine performance. OEE IntelliSuite extends that data with the people, workflows, and business-system context needed to run operations better.
Through the XL Bolt-On Data Collector from Sulzer Consulting, a Microsoft Windows service that periodically harvests the data buffered inside each device and copies it into your own database, at a capture frequency you configure, against Microsoft SQL Server. OEE IntelliSuite reads that database, so the collector is part of a Vorne XL deployment and is licensed separately from the suite. Work Tracker talks to the boards directly when it writes jobs, states and reasons back to them.
For plants that want to hear about a stoppage without their data leaving the building.
Pulse is the real-time monitoring and alerting module: live production status, unified dashboards, and the alert rules that decide who hears about a stoppage and how. It is one of the core modules rather than a separate add-on.
In-app banners, email, SMS, Microsoft Teams, Slack and Discord. Which ones you turn on is also what decides how much crosses your network boundary: an in-app banner and email through your own internal relay never leave the building, while hosted mail, SMS, Teams, Slack and Discord each carry the text of one alert and the address it is sent to.
Pulse watches production state and thresholds and sends the alert on the channels you have configured, SMS included. A text goes out through a messaging provider, so the message and the destination number leave the plant. On an in-plant install the production database stays on your server either way. Recipients opt in and can reply STOP at any time.
What you can get out of the data once it is collected, and how far back it goes.
XL reporting can show machine, job, and note data, but it does not add the broader context many manufacturers want around that data. OEE IntelliSuite extends reporting with employee visibility, ERP and CMMS context, workflow support, and more flexibility for customization.
OEE, TEEP, Availability, Performance and Quality, down to individual reason codes and reject reasons. Explorer is where those are charted, and V1 history appears in the same charts once Data Converter has run.
Retention is part of sizing the server rather than something you pick off a list. The technical specifications page sizes a server around how many years you want available for reporting, how many Vorne boards report into it, which of the products you run, how often your team uses reports and dashboards at the same time, and how long backups are kept.
It means users can see current production status, shift activity, operator inputs, and key metrics while work is happening instead of waiting for after-the-fact reports.
The part of the system the floor actually touches during a shift.
It means production activity can be tied to the people involved in the work, including time by employee, by job, and by shift.
It means different roles can be tracked independently rather than treating all labor as one bucket. Examples include primary operators, helpers, and technicians.
They are actions users can take inside the software workflow, such as selecting jobs, adding comments, responding to prompts, managing job states, and completing checklists or handoff steps.
It means job data can come from the systems a plant already uses instead of being entered manually in one place. Depending on scope, that can include ERP data, databases, APIs, and spreadsheet-driven workflows.
A browser, on desktops, laptops, tablets, phones, and browser-capable smart TVs or signage displays. Current Chrome, Edge, Safari and Firefox are supported.
What asking a question in plain language actually does, and what it is built on.
Advisor answers production questions asked in plain language, using your own records. It writes a read-only query against your production database, runs it, and shows you the query behind every number it gives back.
No. Advisor is a separately licensed module. Pulse, Explorer, Work Tracker and Data Converter are the core modules and work without it.
What plant IT will ask before they will host it.
A production Windows Server install starts at 4 cores, 16 GB of RAM and 256 GB of disk. A Linux install can start smaller, at 2 cores and 8 GB. Final sizing depends on how many boards report in and how many years of history you want to keep online, and the technical specifications page has the minimum and recommended tables for both.
Both. Debian is preferred for Linux installs, and Windows Server 2022 is supported when plant IT requires it. Containers are the preferred install mode, and a native Windows installation is available for sites that cannot run them.
Through a VPN with SSH or RDP, or an approved outbound tunnel where direct inbound access is not allowed. Sites that cannot have any internet access get an offline installation bundle and a manual transfer path for updates.
No. We hold no SOC 2 report, and no other third-party audit or certificate. What plant IT can check instead is where the data sits: on the on-premises install that is a server inside your own network, holding the production database and the history behind every report, and a cloud install is available for sites that prefer it. Support reaches in over your VPN or an approved outbound tunnel rather than an inbound connection from the internet, and the technical specifications page lists everything the server has to reach.
What gets built when the standard product does not cover how a plant runs.
Vorne XL, SQL Server, PostgreSQL, REST APIs, Excel imports, SAP, Oracle, Microsoft Dynamics, ERP and scheduling feeds, MQTT, SMTP, SMS, Power BI, Tableau and Apache Superset. PLC Bridge also joins a unified namespace as a Sparkplug B edge node on your own broker. The technical specifications page keeps that list current.
The shape of the two commercial models, before you get to the numbers.
Either one. There is an annual subscription that bundles the core modules and prices the add-ons separately, and a one-time license in a Basic and a Professional tier. On the license the annual fee is optional for updates and support, and becomes required while Advisor or any other AI analysis is in use. The pricing pages carry the current numbers for both.
Partly. Both models charge a base that covers up to ten devices and add a per-device amount above that, so the first ten cost the same whether you have three or ten. The pricing calculator on the subscription and license pages works it out for a device count.
The XL Bolt-On Data Collector, which is what puts your Vorne XL data into SQL Server for the suite to read. It is licensed separately by Sulzer Consulting and is not included in the figures on our pricing pages, so a quote for a Vorne XL plant covers both. Even with it the stack stays inexpensive: our base covers the first ten devices and adds $150 a device a year above that, rather than charging a monthly subscription for every machine on the floor.
Data Converter has a free trial and runs a line at a time, so you can convert one line and check the numbers before committing anything else. For the rest of the suite, ask us and we will set it up against your own situation, because what matters first is what your boards actually contain.
For evaluations that have more than one product in them, whether that is two names or a shortlist that does not exist yet.
It usually comes down to where the production data lives and what the system reads. On premises, OEE IntelliSuite runs on a server you own on your own network and reads the Vorne XL boards you already have; a hosted deployment is available instead. The platforms we are most often compared with read machine controls directly and keep the data in their own cloud. Ask us for the head-to-head against whichever one you are weighing, sourced from that vendor's own current pages.
Start wider than a head-to-head. Work out which several products are genuinely worth looking at, what each one suits, and be suspicious of any list where the vendor writing it comes out on top of every row. Anything you are told about another company should be traceable to that company's own published material, with a date on it. Once the list is down to two names, ask us for the head-to-head on those two and we will put it together against your own situation.
For an evaluation that has not narrowed to two products yet.
Start from what you already have installed, because that decides most of it. Then work through the criteria you can actually test during an evaluation: where the software runs, what happens to your data if you stop paying, whether it works with hardware you already own, what the operator has to do differently, and what year two costs. Ask each vendor those, and treat a vague answer as an answer.
If the question you came with is not on this page, ask it. Tell us what you run and we will answer against your own setup rather than in general.
Tell us what you run and what you need out of it, and we will tell you what fits.