Work In Progress on the Shop Floor

Here’s a scenario that occurs every day in manufacturing job shops: A customer calls wanting to know the status of their job. You take the call but have only the slightest idea where their job is. Somebody scheduled it for production but you’re not sure when, and you’re not sure how far along it is. You don’t know the phase it’s in, so you can’t quite predict a completion date, which you know the customer is going to ask next.

Watch this little teaser video, then scroll down for more discussion.

What if you could look up on the big-screen on the shop floor wall and see the status. Or see it right on your PC. Wouldn’t that be cool?

But how would that work?

It works because employees on the shop floor are scanning tasks as they complete them. They scan the job and task, which tell you what stage the job is in at any given time. Dozens of jobs are in progress simultaneously, so this gives status to every one of them. What stage is it in? What percentage complete? How many hours have been completed so far? Which employee worked on it last? What department is it in? And what is the likely completion date?

This is “Work In Progress.” And it is available on a big TV screen on your shop floor. Now everybody knows the status of over job, from sales to project managers to supervisors to shop floor operators.

Work In Progress screens are available in Standard Time®. Download here: www.stdtime.com/manufacturing.

 

Things You Collect with Barcode Scanners

Ever wonder what things you can scan during the manufacturing process? Here’s a quickie video for you. It’s not a tutorial on barcode scanning, just a survey of things you can scan. Scroll down below the video for a list.

 

Things you can scan on the shop floor:

  1. Employee names
  2. Project names
  3. Task names
  4. Categories
  5. Project status
  6. Task status and completion flag
  7. Expense templates
  8. Inventory items
  9. BOM lists
  10. Tools
  11. Unique items for your business
  12. Scripts

Got another thing you want to scan in your mfg shop? Have you tried the “Required Scans” option? That let’s you craft a custom scan to collect unique values for your manufacturing KPI’s and status. Scripts are another possibility to extend the built-in scanning capabilities of Standard Time. Just scan a script name and let it perform and database, email or web interaction you need. You will need IT support for script writing. They can be complex, but they are also very flexible and wide in their scope. You can do just about anything in scripts.

Click here to download: http://stdtime.com/download.htm

 

Project Revenue From Gantt Chart

Did you know that your Gantt chart contains all the information for a revenue bar chart. You can look out into the future and see potential revenue for your projects. The video below describes one possible way.

You may be thinking of your Gantt chart as purely graphical, with dates and durations and user assignments. But behind those Gantt chart tasks is all the information for also viewing project revenue. And dragging tasks around on the Gantt chart is actually affecting your future cash flow. You are effectively telling your MRP/ERP when you’ll perform the tasks, which affects when client billing and cash flow occurs.

Watch the video and tell us what you think.