RackPilot — the complete guide

One calm, modern screen over your whole operation — warehouse, loading, shop floor and ingredients — with a built-in assistant, Billy, that reads the floor and tells you what needs attention right now. It runs on anything with a browser, needs nothing installed, and keeps working even if the network drops.

This guide covers everything: signing in, the day-to-day screens for each team, and the admin settings. Most of it is for the manager / admin; the parts your teams need are short and marked.

Getting around: every screen has a 🏠 Home button that takes you back to your category's overview (the hub). Managers reach Admin from the hub (under Display & Admin) or the 📖 Guide / Admin links in a screen's header.

1. The big picture — categories, the hub and Billy

RackPilot is organised into categories (departments): Warehouse, Loading Bay, Shop Floor and Ingredients Store by default — and you can add your own.

When you sign in you land on the hub — your category's overview. It shows Billy's flags, the plan, open requests, problems (fishbone) and, on the shop floor, what's running and any downtime.
Billy is the assistant at the top of the hub. It reads everything and surfaces what matters: stuck pallets, lines down, shortages, open problems — each as a one-tap link to the right screen.
Each category only shows its own things. People stay focused on their area; managers and viewers see across all of it.

2. Signing in & switching category

Go to your site address and choose how you're signing in (manager, staff, viewer), then enter your username and password.
Shop-floor staff pick their line. After signing in, a line worker chooses which line they're on ("Start typing, e.g. Line 1" → Continue to my line) and is then locked to that line for the shift — they can only act on it.
People with access to more than one category pick one after login and can swap any time with Change category in the hub.
There's a link back to the public landing page from the sign-in screen.
A warm welcome. The moment you sign in, a full-screen "Welcome to [your factory], Hello [your name]" plays for a couple of seconds, then takes you straight to your hub (or your line). It's automatic — nothing to tap.

Looks right on every screen. RackPilot detects whether you're on a phone, tablet, laptop or a big TV / wall screen and tunes the layout and size for that device automatically — large and glanceable on a wall panel, compact and tap-friendly on a phone. The dedicated TV display (/tv) is purpose-built for the wall.

3. Who can do what (roles)

Role	Can do	Where from
Manager / Admin	Everything, every category, including all admin	Anywhere
Coordinator	Full control of their department	Anywhere
Staff (user)	Put away / pick / log work in their department (and their line)	On the factory network only
Viewer	See everything, change nothing	Anywhere

Staff are on-site only by design — they can only make changes from your trusted networks (see §15). Managers and coordinators can work from anywhere.
Viewers are perfect for senior oversight: they see every category but can't change or request anything.

4. Admin is now per-category

Open Admin and you'll see an "Admin for:" bar at the top. Admin shows the controls for one category at a time — and it defaults to the category you're signed into. So if you're in the Shop Floor and open Admin, you get shop-floor admin (production lines), not the warehouse.

Tap a chip (Warehouse · Loading Bay · Shop Floor · Ingredients) to switch which category you're managing.
Site-wide settings — people & logins, departments, security and email — live in their own clearly-labelled section at the bottom and apply everywhere.

What each category shows

In any category's admin there's a "What this category shows" panel. Tick or untick the shared tools — Billy, the plan (tasks), fishbone, requests and (where relevant) line output. A switched-off tool simply disappears from that category's overview and menu, giving the people who don't need it a clean screen. Nothing is deleted — switch it back on any time.

5. Warehouse — set up your racking (admin)

A new factory comes with starter racks. To change or add more:

Admin (Warehouse) → "Add several racks at once".
Type how many racks you need, the Deep (pallets front-to-back) and High (levels), pick the Type, and press ➕ Create racks.
They're numbered automatically (1, 2, 3 …), carrying on from the highest number you already have.

Rack types: Rolling LIFO (load & pick at the front, push-back) · Rolling FIFO (load at back, pick at front, flow) · Static (every pallet in its own slot) · Floor (block / floor stacking).

Different depth per level: set "Per-level deep" to a list like 6,6,5,5 (one number per level, level 1 first). Blank = every level the same.
Load side: sets which side the rack loads from on screen (Right/Left), so position P1 (the front) shows on the correct side. Display-only.
Order: controls left-to-right order on screen — lower comes first.
Press Save on a row, or 💾 Save all changes at the bottom for everything. If a change can't be made (e.g. shrinking a rack that still has a pallet in the deepest slot) it tells you exactly which rack and why — it never silently reverts.

6. Warehouse — pallets in, out and around (staff)

On the tablet (Racking & Pallets), green is empty, blue is filled.

Put a pallet in: tap a green slot → pick the product (or add a new one, with a photo) → set the quantity → Put in. Rolling racks load at the front and push the rest back. The TV updates instantly.
Take out / send to production: tap a blue slot → Take out or Send to production. Pallets behind roll forward automatically.
Move: tap a filled slot → Move → tap the empty slot to move it to (any rack or level).
Bulk select: tap the ☑️ select button, tap several filled pallets, then Send N to production or Take N out in one go.
Stuck pallet: tap a slot → Mark stuck. It turns red, flashes on the TV, and freezes the lane behind it until cleared (the front spaces stay usable).
Find any pallet: the 🔍 search finds a pallet by name, UIC or SKU and shows its exact zone, rack, level and position.

7. Warehouse — products, deliveries & the map (admin)

Product catalogue: Admin → add the products you store with their UIC and SKU (and a photo, and a full-pallet quantity). The UIC shows on the TV, and staff pick from this list when putting pallets in. Codes also let Billy match a shop-floor request straight onto your stock.
Goods In (deliveries): Admin → schedule a delivery that's on its way (supplier, reference, items). Staff then check the load on the Goods In screen before putting it away.
The warehouse map: Admin → Map: draw your zones on the floor-plan, choose which products each zone allows, and add racks straight into a zone.

8. Shop floor — lines, status & checks (staff & admin)

Lines & Checks shows what's running on each line, downtime and the start-up checks. A worker signed in to a line can set its status (running / changeover / down), log downtime with a reason, and tick the start-up checks — but only for their line. Managers see and can step into every line.
Downtime is timed: a stopped line shows how long it's been down, and Billy ranks the week's biggest causes so the team knows what to tackle first.
Line Plan is the week's plan — which product runs on which line.

Managing the lines themselves (admin)

In Shop-Floor admin → Production lines you can add, rename or remove the lines workers pick from at sign-in. Renaming a line carries everything with it — its plan, checks, runs, downtime and problems all follow the new name, so no history is ever orphaned. Removing a line just takes it off the pick-list; past records that mention it stay as history.

OEE dashboard — how well the lines run (📊 Shop floor)

Open OEE from the hub or the shop-floor header. Because RackPilot isn't wired into your line PLCs, OEE is entered by hand — a supervisor logs each run and RackPilot does the maths:

Type the planned time, downtime, ideal cycle (seconds per unit), total made and good units. A live preview shows the result as you type.
RackPilot computes Availability × Performance × Quality = OEE, colour-coded (green/amber/red), with a per-line roll-up and a period filter (7 / 30 / 90 days / year). It's a true roll-up of the underlying time and counts, not an average of percentages.
A line-locked worker logs only their line; only a manager can delete an entry, and every entry is in the Activity history.

9. Requests — shop floor asks, warehouse delivers

Raise a request (shop floor): on Request Packaging, pick the line, the item, the quantity and a UIC or SKU. Billy checks the warehouse by that code and flags a shortfall on the spot — e.g. "need 6, only 5 in stock: 1 pallet short" — so it can be acted on before the line stops.
Fulfil a request (warehouse / manager): the warehouse sees every incoming request and a Mark fulfilled button — there's no "raise" form there. Everyone else can see the requests but only the shop floor raises them.

10. Fishbone — solving problems, alerts, reminders & history

Anyone in a department can log a fishbone: the problem and its likely causes (the classic Ishikawa branches). Only a manager signs off the solution after investigating.
No line to pick: the fishbone is smart about where it belongs. Off the shop floor it's scoped to the whole category automatically; on the shop floor a worker's signed-in line is used; only a manager (free of any one line) chooses a line from a dropdown. Nobody types a line.
How serious? Tag each problem Low / Medium / High / Critical. High and Critical email the managers immediately and stand out in the history.
5 Whys: keep asking "why?" right on the card to drive to the real root cause — not just the first symptom.
🤖 Billy: suggest causes: one tap and Billy proposes likely cause categories (the 6 Ms) and pulls in the line's real recent downtime reasons — instant and offline. Tap a suggestion to drop it onto the fish as a spike.
Corrective actions (CAPA): a manager assigns actions with an owner and a due date, and ticks them done. Overdue actions are chased automatically (see Billy's watch, below).
Instant email alerts: the moment a new problem is flagged — in any department — every manager (admin-role account, by their own email) gets an email straight away. Turn it on/off in Admin → Email & alerts.
24-hour reminders: if a fishbone is still open after 24 hours, the managers get a reminder email — and it repeats daily until it's solved, so nothing quietly slips. Same on/off switch as the alerts.
Snap a photo: attach (or take, straight from a phone) a photo of the problem — it shows on the history card and on the A3 report. Max 4 MB.
📄 A3 report: one click on any problem produces a printable, one-page A3 — background, contributing causes, the 5-Whys root cause, the CAPA countermeasures, the target and the follow-up/sign-off (and the photo). Print it or save it as a PDF for a review meeting.
🔳 Report by QR: in Admin → QR codes, print a scannable code for each line and area and stick it up on the floor. Anyone scans it with a phone camera to open the report form already set to that line — true one-tap reporting, no login menu, no typing.
Managers only delete: staff, coordinators and viewers cannot delete a logged problem — it can't quietly disappear. A manager can, and the deletion is recorded in the Activity history (who, when). Everything else stays in the fishbone history showing who raised it and when, and who solved it and when.

Billy's proactive watch — the serious stuff finds the managers

Billy reads the whole site every few minutes and emails the managers the serious problems it finds — lines down too long, critical stock shortages, stuck pallets blocking access, overdue corrective actions and recurring issues. It won't spam: the same standing problem isn't re-sent within 12 hours. It uses the same one-switch control in Admin → Email & alerts.

11. Line Output — finished product & integration

The Line Output screen shows finished pallets coming off the line — each with its SSCC, best-before and top/bottom stacking decision — plus the failures that hurt today (no-reads, missing labels, labeller faults), which Billy turns into flags and one-tap fishbones. RackPilot doesn't replace your line kit — it gives you one modern view across all of it.

Go live with your labelling / SSCC system (admin)

Out of the box this shows demo data. To make it real, have your labelling system export a small file (CSV or JSON) of finished pallets and failures to a shared folder, then in Admin → Warehouse → Line Output — live feed paste the file path and press Save. Use Test feed to confirm RackPilot can read it. From then on the screen reads that file live and read-only, every few seconds — nothing is written back, so there's zero risk to your validated line systems. The expected file format (with examples) is shown right under the field. If the feed ever can't be read, the screen safely falls back to demo and tells you why.

12. Activity log — who did what, and when

The Activity view is your warehouse audit trail: pallets received, moved, sent to production and taken out, each stamped with the operator's name and the time. Moved pallets are logged too — they never just vanish. Set how long records are kept with the retention option (keep forever by default, or trim to a number of days you choose).

History — the site-wide audit trail (admin only)

Admin → 🗂️ History is a clean, admin-only record of everything that matters across the whole site, categorised by department so you're never wading through one big list:

A sidebar and tiles let you jump to any category (Warehouse, Shop Floor, a custom department, or People & System); a dropdown filters by action type and a search box finds a person or item.
It logs problems raised, edited, solved and deleted (with who and when — this is where a deleted fishbone is accounted for), requests raised / fulfilled / cancelled, line status changes, and people & system changes (users, departments, settings).
It's append-only — entries are never edited, and logging can never break the action it records.

13. Loading bay & trailers

Bays & Yard shows your loading bays and trailers in 3D, and which are ready to swap.
Trailers & Yard lets you edit trailers, mark one needs swap, and record what each holds. Billy flags trailers that need swapping.

14. People & passwords (admin)

Admin → Add a person: create a login and choose the role (staff / coordinator / viewer / manager) and the categories they can use. Tick Manager — all for full site-wide access. People with more than one category pick which to use after login and can switch with Change category.
An email is required for every account — it's how they recover their own password, so nobody has to wait on an admin.
Self-service password reset (everyone): on the sign-in screen, tap "Forgot your password?", type your email, and a 6-digit code is emailed to you; enter the code and a new password — done. Works for staff, managers, everyone.
No internet to send the code? The admin can read the outstanding code from Admin → Password reset codes instead.
Passwords need 8+ characters with an uppercase, a lowercase and a symbol.
Departments: rename any category (the built-in four can be renamed but not removed) or add your own. Custom departments get the shared Tasks, Fishbone and Request tools.

15. Security & email (admin)

Trusted networks: list the networks (e.g. 203.0.113.0/24 or a single IP) staff may make changes from. Leave blank to allow changes from anywhere (fine on the factory WiFi, but lock it down once it's on the internet). The admin can always change from anywhere. Tick "behind a reverse proxy / Cloudflare" if it is, so the real visitor address is read correctly.
Email is set up once, by the operator — the actual sending service (an API key) is configured on the server, not in the app. After that it "just works" everywhere: reset codes and alerts send automatically. As a manager you only ever set the address to receive updates and tick the alerts you want, in Admin → Email & alerts. Use "Send me a test email" to confirm it's live.
Emails are sent over plain HTTPS, so they work even on hosts that block the old mail (SMTP) ports, and arrive from your own domain (e.g. noreply@yourdomain), never a personal address.

16. The big TV

Open TV, make the browser full-screen (F11 on a PC), pick which zone it shows (or All zones), and size it with A− / Fit / A+ — Fit scales everything to the screen with no scrolling. Each TV remembers its own size.

17. Works offline, installs nowhere

RackPilot is a web app — open it in any browser, on a tablet, phone, PC or the wall TV. It's network-first but keeps a cached copy, so a dropped connection doesn't stop the screens. Hard-refresh (Ctrl + Shift + R) any time to pull the latest.

Owner note: the platform owner manages businesses and factories at /owner, sets each business's password, and sees live usage on the Dashboard. Each business signs in at the Factory login to reach only their own factories.