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Manufacturing Resource Requirements Software

Have you ever seen a Gantt chart with a resource requirements bar chart? In other words, a bar chart that updates as you drag task bars on the Gantt timeline. I know… that takes some time to mentally process. Watch the video below, and then scroll down from more discussion.

Image dragging task bars on your Gantt chart, and watching a resource requirements bar chart update as you do. That’s essentially what is being described here.

It’s one thing to see a nice timeline with task bars (that’s a Gantt chart), and it’s also one nice thing to see a bar chart with resource requirements for each week, but combining the two is really helpful. When you drag task bars on the timeline, you see what impact that had on resource requirements.

How many engineers do you need on week 34? How many forklifts in July verses August? How many assemblers on line 12 in November before the holiday rush? These are questions answered by a resource requirements chart.

Slotting projects on a timeline is also necessary. But you can’t do that without making sure you’ve got the manpower and materials. So, you need resource allocation. The two work hand-in-hand.

Standard Time® is a minimalist MRP with these exact capabilities. You can try these ideas for free. If you’re new to Gantt charts or resource allocation, this is the perfect place to learn. Click here: www.stdtime.com/manufacturing

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Organizing Manufacturing Projects

Question: How do you organize and report on manufacturing projects? That is to say, what criteria groups projects into working buckets? Do you put them into portfolios so you can see which portfolio performs best? Or set the status of projects to report on stages or phases? How about assign them to assembly lines to see slots where new projects can go? Those are all techniques described in the video below. Plus, there are a few more.

Did you know you can try these project organization techniques today? Download a copy of Standard Time® and try them for free. You might become inspired to learn more about your own projects and find that organizing them simplifies the monolithic list you have now.

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Manufacturing Resource Allocation

Use your “stuff” the best way possible in manufacturing. Haha, that’s one way to put it! This is just a quickie video to help introduce and explain resource allocation. If you’re unfamiliar with the term, this little video might help. And, it’s always worth hearing another perspective if you’re an “old salt” in the project management industry.

Manufacturing resource planners, like Standard Time® make light work of this kind of project management. And, they’re not bad at collecting actuals from the factory floor. E.g. actuals like time, materials, inventory usage, machine hours, and tool usage. Consider taking a look.

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Assembly Line Project Allocation and Scheduling

Assembly line managers can see which projects are running on each line. Use this lite MRP/ERP tool to slot projects on assembly lines. Once slotted, you’ll see their resource time commitments in a bar chart. Now you can find slots of new projects.

Watch the video below!

Every manufacturing project has resource and time commitments. Manufacturing projects on assembly lines are no different, except that you are committing those resources to a single line. That’s actually a good thing because you can now see which projects run on each line, and find empty time slots for the next project.

Bar charts help visualize time commitments, and make slotting new projects on manufacturing assembly lines much faster.

Have you tried Standard Time? Find the link on this page and download a copy. It’s free to try.

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Shop Floor Barcode Scanning

Manufacturers – let us familiarize you with barcodes. They have many advantages but let me mention three. Watch the video then scroll down for an overview.

The three biggest advantages of using barcodes on the shop floor are:

  1. Employees without computers can still collect their hours. Sure, a little tablet is still considered a computer, but you can throw away the keyboard and mouse. The only input device you need is a barcode scanner. That means employees are not fat-finger faking their hours. They scan their jobs and time is collected for them.
  2. You want accurate times for all your manufacturing tasks. How can you get them? It will never happen with a keyboard. There are too many ways to cheat and mess up.
  3. With just a few scans you collect a huge amount of data. Try that with a typical timekeeping software product. It won’t happen. Barcodes are the only way to grab all that data with so little employee effort.

Give barcode scanning a try. It may completely change your thinking.

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Scheduling Projects for Manufacturing

I’m a manufacturing project manager and I need to schedule jobs for production! Can I get them slotted quickly? How about tracking their time with barcodes on the shop floor.

Yep, there’s an app for that. (scroll down for a video)

It’s called Standard Time®. And it’s a registered trademark because it’s been around for nearly two decades. That’s a while. It means you have tools that have grown organically from many other customers. They have proven this app in so many settings you’re likely to find it slick as easy as they do.

Start by slotting jobs for production, and then take input from the shop floor with barcode scanners. You’ve got project management and time tracking seamlessly connected. Give it a try today!

 

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Project Task Link Relationships

The video below shows a quick overview of task link dependencies. In other words, one task is dependent upon another. When the first task is completed, the next one can start. What the video, then scroll down below it for more information.

There are four types of link relationships in this video:

  1. Finish-To-Start
  2. Start-To-Start
  3. Finish-To-Finish
  4. Start-To-Finish

As the names suggest, these link relationships are associated with task dates. Start and Finish dates affect other tasks. When a predecessor date changes, a successor task will be moved to reflect the link relationship.

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Basic Barcode Setup for Mfg, Scanning on the Shop Floor

This video shows how to set up barcode scanning for manufacturing on the shop floor. (scroll down for video)

It is so easy to begin tracking time for employees on the shop floor. Just slap a barcode scanner in their hands and ask them to scan their work orders and tasks. Now that is a hundred and ten percent easier than filling out paper timesheets and yelling job status across the floor. Just scan and go.

Wait… what do employees scan?

Try scanning in this order:

  1. Scan your employee badge
  2. Scan the work order
  3. Scan the task you’re working on

That’s it! A timer will start, and you can begin your work. When you finish your task, scan these things:

  1. Scan your employee badge again
  2. Scan the word STOP

No the timer stops. You have just communicated the following things to your boss:

  1. When you started work
  2. How long you worked
  3. What job you worked on
  4. What task you worked on
  5. What client the work was for
  6. What department the work was done in
  7. What phase of the job was worked on
  8. How many times the job was touched
  9. How many tasks it took for the job
  10. The total hours accumulated on the job
  11. The percentage of completion for the job
  12. When the job is likely to be done
  13. And about a dozen other things you don’t readily think of

See how valuable this is? Just a few scans communicate a huge amount of information. Watch the video and give it a try.

 

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Task Management and Resource Allocation

Use the technique in this video to know when your human and material resources are available for use. Actually, the video shows a bar graph of resource requirements for your projects. In other words… headcount. (how many employees you need for all your jobs)

Watch the vid, and then scroll down for more.

Resource requirements bar chart

In the video, you see a bar chart with numbers above each bar. They represent employees required to perform your jobs.

Gantt chart

You also see tasks being dragged around. That area is known as a Gantt chart. Actually, it’s an interactive Gantt chart, because you can browse over it, and click and drag.

 

Resource scheduling

That’s just a fancy term for employee planning. But project managers use the term “resource” because you may be planning more than just employees. You might be planning when to use trucks… or heavy equipment… or specialized tools. You can’t call those employees, so you need a generic term. That’s where the word “resource” comes from.

 

Task management

Again… another fancy term that just means telling your employees what to do. Setting out a basic  set of tasks for each job means you can assign them to people, and then see how many people are required for all your jobs. That’s what this resource requirements bar chart is all about. You can look out into the future and see how many people you need for all your jobs and tasks.

 

Why is this valuable to you?

Because your projects may get so numerous that you forget a few. Forgetting a project is not a big deal unless you book a few others in their place. Now you’re double-booking, and when it comes time to do the forgotten ones (that you now remember) the new ones are taking the same time slot. Oops!

A tool like this helps you to remember when you scheduled your jobs.

 

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Tool Control For the Shop Floor

Standard Time® is not just for time tracking and project management. It’s also for tool control and accountability on the shop floor. Watch this video below for steps to scan barcodes to check tools out. Scroll way down…

Three scans will check a tool out, and assign it to an operator.

  1. Scan username (to tell which user is checking the tool out)
  2. Scan tool name (to tell which tool is being checked out)
  3. Scan CHECKOUT (to perform the operation)

Those three scans assign a tool to an operator on the shop floor. Now the tool is under their care, and is assumed to be returned in the same state it was taken. This is the basics of tool accountability for manufacturing and factory floor use.

Here’s how to check a tool back in:

  1. Scan username
  2. Scan tool name (this shows the date/time you originally checked the tool out)
  3. Scan CHECKIN

After checking a tool back in, the actual hours between CHECKOUT and CHECKIN are added to the total. Now you know the total number of hours the tool was in use (approx). You can use this for PM purposes.