Blog
Ishikawa Fishbone Diagram: 6M, Manufacturing Example & Template
Learn what an Ishikawa (fishbone) diagram is, the 6Ms, and how to use it for root cause analysis in manufacturing, with a worked example, how it compares to the 5 Whys and Pareto analysis, a template, and common mistakes.
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Building Digital Work Instructions Dashboard for the Shop Floor
Learn how to build digital work instructions with FlowFuse. Create personalized operator apps with work orders, guided steps, defect reporting, and traceability.
Handling Clock Drift in Distributed Edge Devices
Learn how to prevent clock drift on distributed edge devices using NTP, local time servers, and FlowFuse to ensure accurate timestamps and reliable IIoT data.
Build a Defect Tracking and Quality Monitoring Dashboard
Build a FlowFuse dashboard that tracks production defects, ranks them with a Pareto chart, surfaces root causes, and totals your cost of poor quality, filtered live by line, shift, and date
Software-Defined Manufacturing: Improve Without Hardware Changes
Software-defined manufacturing (SDM) is changing how factories improve operations. Learn what SDM means, why traditional manufacturing software falls short, and how FlowFuse helps manufacturers build and manage industrial applications that evolve without large-scale modernization projects.
Build a Machine Downtime Tracking Application
Learn how to build a machine downtime tracking application in FlowFuse that captures stop and start events over MQTT, calculates downtime duration automatically, lets operators log a reason from a dashboard, and displays live KPI cards.
Why Manufacturing Needs GitOps
Manufacturing has always managed change on the factory floor with discipline. Learn how GitOps and FlowFuse DevOps Pipelines bring that same rigor to industrial software deployments.
Control and Track Machines on the Factory Floor
Learn how to connect FlowFuse to a Siemens S7 PLC, build an operator dashboard to control a motor and stack light, and automatically track device runtime using the Hourglass node.
FlowFuse 2.32: Certified Redis, Git Pipelines for Any Server, Insights on Remote Instances, and Dark Mode
FlowFuse 2.32 certifies the Redis node, extends DevOps Git pipelines to any HTTPS server, and adds Insights mode on remote instances, plus dark mode, Device Agent 4, and a Plan Mode for the Expert.
Announcing Node-RED Con 2026: Call for Papers Now Open
Node-RED Con 2026 takes place on November 3, 2026. FlowFuse is proud to sponsor this free online conference. The Call for Papers is open until July 31, submit your talk.
Turning an Application Idea into an Architecture
Learn how to turn industrial application ideas into clear architectures using a structured four-step framework based on FlowFuse building blocks.
Historical Data Logging with OPC UA and InfluxDB
Learn how to connect OPC UA and InfluxDB in FlowFuse to log industrial equipment data as timestamped history, so you can spot trends, prove compliance, and catch failures before they happen.
Processing RTSP Camera Feeds at the Edge
Learn how to use the FlowFuse RTSP Video Feed node to pull frames from a camera stream, display them on a dashboard, and feed them to local AI models, without sending video off-site.
Fixing PLC Communication Latency: Where the Milliseconds Really Go
Troubleshoot PLC communication latency by identifying common causes such as poll rates, timeout settings, connection limits, and protocol selection.
Why Downtime Spreadsheets Fail and How to Automate Detection and Escalation
Build an event-driven workflow in FlowFuse that detects machine stops instantly, auto-escalates to supervisor and maintenance, and logs accurate timestamped downtime records, no spreadsheet required.
MQTT vs Sparkplug B: Which One (or Both) Do You Need?
A practical guide to choosing between plain MQTT and Sparkplug B for industrial IoT: where MQTT's flexibility turns into a topic-namespace mess, what Sparkplug B's structure, binary payloads, and birth/death certificates fix, the QoS 0 trade-off nobody mentions, and why most large deployments end up running both.
Node-RED 5 Is Here: What It Means for Industrial Teams
Node-RED 5 reshapes the editor with redesigned sidebars, an Explorer panel, and a built-in dark theme. Here's what changes for teams running it in production on FlowFuse, and how to upgrade your instances.
OPC UA Security: How to Establish a Defensible OPC UA Security Architecture
Turn every OPC UA attack vector into a configuration decision you control: Reverse Connect to keep the firewall closed, enforced trust lists, SignAndEncrypt, GDS certificate management, RBAC, and the field anti-patterns that quietly undo all of it.
FlowFuse 2.31: Agentic Development Now in Open Beta, FlowFuse Expert Builds Your Industrial App on Edge Devices
In FlowFuse 2.31, FlowFuse Expert builds your industrial application for you, now an open beta on FlowFuse Cloud and Self-Hosted Enterprise, and working on Remote Instances as well as Hosted ones. Plus per-team and platform-level AI controls and real-time platform updates.