SQDC board software: A digital tier board that colours itself from the KPIs
An SQDC board is the daily management board a team stands at. It has one panel each for safety, quality, delivery and cost, red or green for each day against a written rule. SQDC board software fills the colours from the KPIs and turns each red into an owned action. What the team cannot fix goes to the next tier.
How an SQDC board works
Four rules, on a whiteboard or a screen
The board exists for the ten minutes a team stands in front of it. Everything about it, from the number of KPIs to the colour of a day, is decided by what that meeting needs.
Pick one or two KPIs per pillar and write the rule for red
Safety: any recordable, or a near miss open past 24 hours. Quality: first pass yield under target, or a customer complaint. Delivery: schedule attainment under 95%. Cost: unplanned downtime over 30 minutes. People: attendance under target, or a critical job without cover. The rule is written on the board before the first huddle, with an owner per pillar.
Colour yesterday first, every day, standing up
Same time, same place, 10 to 15 minutes. The team leader runs it and the team attends. Colour yesterday's day on each pillar before anyone speaks, then read the KPIs that are off target this week. A board filled in on Friday for the week is a report, not a board.
Every red gets an action or an escalation
For each red, two questions: what happened, and what do we do today. If the team can fix it, it becomes an action with a name and a date. If not, it goes to the tier 2 board the same morning. Review yesterday's actions before adding today's; late ones get a decision, not a reminder.
Read the month, not the day, and roll it up
Three reds on delivery in two weeks is a pattern, and a pattern deserves a 3C row or an A3, not three more actions. Tier 2 reads the lines' boards together, tier 3 reads the areas, and each tier sees the same numbers the line entered rather than a copy made a shift later.
Who uses it
One board per tier, and what each tier asks of it
Team leader, tier 1, every shift
Know in ten minutes whether yesterday met the rule on all five pillars, and what we do about today's red.
The line's board: one or two KPIs per pillar, yesterday coloured, this week's actions with names, and the one item escalated to tier 2.
Supervisor or value stream manager, tier 2, daily
See all the lines on one board and decide which reds need help from outside the team.
The area board: each line's pillars side by side, escalated items from tier 1 with their history, and actions that cross lines, such as a shared forklift or a supplier lot.
Plant manager, tier 3, daily or weekly
Read the plant's pattern and remove the obstacle the areas keep hitting.
The plant board: pillars rolled up from the areas, the month's trend per pillar, open escalations by owner, and the decisions sent back down.
CI lead or lean coordinator
Turn the pattern into a project before it becomes a habit.
Reads the month on every board: a pillar red three times in two weeks becomes an A3 or a Kaizen, linked to the reds that started it.
What a good board looks like
A board that drives the day, next to one that records it
| Element | A board that works | A board that decays |
|---|---|---|
| KPIs | One or two per pillar, each with a target, a direction and an owner written next to it. | Ten metrics per pillar copied from last week's report, none with a target. |
| Rule for red | Written on the board before the first huddle: "red when attainment is under 95%". | Coloured by feel, so the board is green when the mood is good. |
| Timing | Yesterday's colour goes on at the huddle, by the person who owns the pillar. | Filled in from a report on Friday, after the week is over. |
| Actions | Every red has an action with a name and a date, or an escalation, before the huddle ends. | Reds are discussed, nodded at, and back next week. |
| Escalation | An item tier 1 cannot fix reaches the tier 2 board the same day, with its notes and history; the reply comes back down. | The supervisor re-explains the problem from memory in the afternoon meeting, if it comes up. |
| Month view | The month's pattern is readable at a glance, and a repeat becomes an A3. | Only today is visible, so the same red is a surprise every time. |
Software earns its place on timing, escalation and the month view. A whiteboard is good at red and green for one team; it is poor at colouring from a number, carrying an item to the next tier with its history, and showing the pattern. Read the Lean Studio SQCDP tier board page for a worked month and how to run the first huddle.
How it works in LeanSuite
What to ask of any SQDC board software, and what LeanSuite does
One definition per KPI: target, direction and the rule for red
Two lines calculating first pass yield differently will argue about the number instead of the problem. The red rule has to live with the KPI, not in someone's head.
Ask the vendor: Where is the target and the red rule for each pillar's KPI defined, and can the team leader see it from the board?
LeanSuite: Each KPI is defined once in KPI Dashboards with its target, Red-Amber-Green ranges and whether up or down is good. Department KPIs roll up to the plant and the company through KPI trees, by sum or average, so every tier reads the same number.
A day coloured from the number, not by hand
The colour is only trustworthy if it comes from the actual against the target. A hand-coloured day drifts towards green.
Ask the vendor: When the day's value goes in, does the day colour itself, and can we see the number behind the colour?
LeanSuite: The SQCDP Tier Board template in Lean Studio puts a heatmap wheel per pillar on the board: a ring of the month's days, each green when the linked KPI met its target and red when it missed, with the current value and its change below, plus a Custom Heatmap for People and a Scorecard against targets.
Numbers in without re-typing
If the supervisor types five numbers from three reports every morning, the board is a shift late by lunch.
Ask the vendor: Which of our numbers can be typed in the huddle, which come from forms, and which can be pulled from the spreadsheet we already keep?
LeanSuite: Values are typed straight into the board during the huddle, arrive from LeanSuite forms and checklists, are pulled on a schedule from Excel on SharePoint or OneDrive or from Google Sheets, or come in as a CSV upload with one-time column mapping. Existing Power BI or Looker Studio reports embed on the same board.
Every red becomes an action with an owner and a date
A red with no action is the board recording failure and doing nothing about it.
Ask the vendor: From a red day, how many taps to an action with an owner and a due date, and what stops it being closed without a fix?
LeanSuite: Create a tag straight from the red day on the widget. Daily Issue Management routes it to an owner by rule (type, area, department, priority), sets the due date from the priority, sends reminders, and holds the fix in Pending Verification before the tag closes.
Escalation up, reply down, with the history attached
The cascade only works if an item tier 1 cannot fix reaches tier 2 the same day without being re-explained, and the answer comes back.
Ask the vendor: How does an item move from the tier 1 board to tier 2, what travels with it, and how does the decision return?
LeanSuite: Escalate an item from the tier 1 board to the tier 2 board with its photos, notes and history, and send the reply back down to the tier that raised it. Each tier works from its own saved-view queue. See Tiered Meetings.
The meeting runs from the board
A board that lives in a separate app from the meeting is a report. The huddle, the timer, the notes and the handover should sit on the same screen.
Ask the vendor: Can we run the huddle from the board, hand over to the next shift from it, and copy it to the next plant?
LeanSuite: A meeting timer keeps the tier 1 huddle to its 10 to 15 minutes, live notes stay pinned for the next shift or tier, the shift handover lists open issues and key events from the previous shift, each tier meeting sits on the calendar linked to its board, Daily Standard Work and audit results show next to the KPIs, and a finished board can be copied to your other facilities.
Before a demo, agree the rule for red on each pillar with the team. The software colours the day from the KPI's target and actual; the rule is still yours to write, and a board without one is green on good days and silent on bad ones.
Pitfalls
Where SQDC boards go wrong, on a whiteboard or a screen
Colouring by feel
If the rule for red is not written down, the board is green when the mood is good and red when the manager is watching.
Instead: Write the rule next to each pillar before the first huddle: the KPI, the target and the number that makes a day red.
A huddle that solves problems
Fifteen minutes spent on root cause for one red means four pillars are never read and the meeting runs to forty.
Instead: The huddle sees, decides and assigns. The solving happens after, by the owner, and is reported at the next huddle.
Reds with no action and no escalation
The board records the failure, the team nods, and the same red is back next week.
Instead: Before the huddle ends, every red has an action with a name and a date or an escalation to tier 2.
Numbers copied a shift late
A supervisor copying yesterday's values from three reports at 10 a.m. gives the team a board that describes the day before yesterday.
Instead: Enter the value at the board in the huddle, or let the form or spreadsheet that already holds it feed the board.
Only the leader talks
A board read aloud by one person is a briefing, and the team stops looking at it.
Instead: Give each pillar an operator owner who colours it and reports it. Ownership is what makes the board theirs.
Never reading the month
A board that only shows today turns a three-week pattern into three separate surprises.
Instead: Read the month's shape at the end of each week. A pillar red three times in two weeks becomes an A3, not another action.
See it on your problem
What you see in a 45-minute LeanSuite demo
The board
The SQCDP Tier Board in Lean Studio for one of your lines, with your pillars, your KPIs and your rule for red.
A day coloured
A KPI with its target and direction, a value entered in the huddle, and the day on the wheel turning green or red from it.
A red to an action
A tag created from the red day, routed to an owner with a due date, and what verification looks like before it closes.
Tier 1 to tier 2 and back
The same item escalated to the tier 2 board with its history, the reply sent back down, and the KPI tree that rolls the lines up to the plant.
FAQs
SQDC board software: buyer questions
Safety, Quality, Delivery and Cost, the four pillars most plants review every day. Many boards add a fifth: P for People or Productivity (SQCDP, SQDCP) or M for Morale (SQDCM), and some add E for Environment. The letters matter less than having one or two measured KPIs per pillar with a written target.
Software that does the job of the SQDC whiteboard: it holds the KPIs behind each pillar with their targets, colours every day red or green from the numbers, keeps the actions raised from reds with owners and due dates, and carries escalated items to the next tier's board. In LeanSuite that is a Lean Studio tier board fed by KPI Dashboards, with actions in Daily Issue Management.
A rule the team agrees in advance and writes on the board: any recordable incident for Safety, a customer complaint or first pass yield under target for Quality, a missed shipment or attainment under 95% for Delivery, unplanned downtime over a set number of minutes for Cost. In LeanSuite the rule is the KPI's target and direction, and the day colours itself from the actual.
The board is built for one meeting: a few KPIs for one team, red or green by day, with today's actions next to them. A KPI dashboard is for drilling down: trends, Pareto reasons, every KPI for every area. In LeanSuite the same KPI definition feeds both, so the number on the tier 1 board is the number in the plant dashboard.
Typed in during the huddle, submitted on a LeanSuite form or checklist, pulled on a schedule from an Excel file on SharePoint or OneDrive or from Google Sheets, or uploaded as a CSV with one-time column mapping. Existing Power BI or Looker Studio reports can be embedded on the same board next to the LeanSuite KPIs.
Create a tag straight from the red day on the widget. Rules route it to an owner by type, area and priority, the due date follows the priority, and the fix waits for verification before the tag closes. If tier 1 cannot fix it, escalate it to the tier 2 board with its notes and history, and send the reply back down.
Yes. Build a board per tier, from the tier 1 shift huddle to the weekly plant review, and copy a finished board to your other facilities. Department KPIs roll up to the plant and the company through KPI trees, by sum or average, so tier 3 reads the same numbers the lines entered.
Yes. The printable SQCDP month calendars give you five rings of days 1 to 31 with the KPI, target, rule for red and owner per pillar, plus an Excel tracker that turns each day's result into green and red days and percent green. The Lean Studio board page shows the same board as a sample with how to run the huddle.
FREE RESOURCES
Free templates, posters and tools
Not ready for software yet? Start with these free resources.
- Daily huddle agendaA 15-minute start-of-shift stand-up in six timed blocks, with yesterday's SQCDP results, today's plan, actions and escalations.
- Hour-by-hour production boardHourly plan against actual with running totals and the reason for each miss, plus a shift summary by reason.
- Escalation matrix templateWho is called for each type of issue and after how long, with severity rules, contacts and an escalation log.
- Tier 2 meeting agenda and escalation sheetA 15-minute tier 2 agenda in ten timed blocks, fixed roles and rules, escalation triggers with time limits, and a log that ages every escalation and sends the answer back down.
- Shift handover templateSafety, production against plan, holds, downtime events, materials and people, and the open actions the next shift takes over.
- Manufacturing KPI dashboard templateWeekly plant numbers in, 14 KPIs out: OEE and its parts, first pass yield, scrap, on-time delivery, recordable rate, cost and absence, each against a target.
- Visual management posterEight visual aids that show at a glance whether an area is normal.
- OEE calculatorOverall equipment effectiveness from shift time, downtime, ideal cycle time and part counts.
- First pass yield (FPY) calculatorFirst pass yield at each step and rolled throughput yield (RTY) across the whole process.
See your five pillars colour themselves
Bring a photo of your board and where its numbers live. We build it in Lean Studio and take one red from the huddle to the tier 2 board, in 45 minutes.