Warehouse Inventory

Have a warehouse? No? How about material racks? In any case, it’s easy to track inventory usage with barcodes. Just scan your name and the SKU. That item is now deducted from stock. Geez, that was simple.

Watch the video below for inspiration.

It turns out Standard Time® will also reorder inventory when it drops below a certain level. You get an email, and in some cases new materials show up at your back door the next day. That’s just in time inventory with Standard Time.

Scan Inventory on Shop Floor

Checking inventory in and out of stock is as easy as a barcode scan. Watch the guy in this video, then download Standard Time®.

Let us know if scanning turned out as easy as this video!

Scanning Steel Plates From Inventory

Do you love the smell of steel? I love the smell of steel. And the numerous lubricants on the shop floor. And the smell of side-grinders, flux-core welders, and mig, and tig.

We hope you love Standard Time® barcoding software almost as much.  🙂

Scan Inventory

Scan inventory on the shop floor and get a timestamped record of material usage. Download Standard Time® and give it a try.

Tracking Inventory and BOMs on the Shop Floor

Did they track inventory items on the shop floor in the 19th Century? Yes, they did! With all the diligence and accuracy that a nib pen and inkwell offered. Legers were filled and filed. Accounting was checked and rechecked. Inventory was reordered and restocked.

Nothing has changed.

Except the technology.       (scroll down below the video for a few words)

Has anything changed in inventory management in the last hundred years?

Technology has changed!

You’ve got barcode scanners now. That alone reduces tracking and human error by a large factor. It means clerks with nib pens and paper legers are no longer trailing workers to enter inventory items consumed on the shop floor. It means operators are no longer yelling across the shop floor, “I used another box of bolts!

Standard Time has changed.

No… not the shift from daylight savings to Standard Time. We’re talking about the time and materials tracker: Standard Time®. ST is the manufacturing resource manager you need for inventory tracking on the shop floor.

Download Standard Time and give inventory management a try.

Track Time For Machines on the Shop Floor

Everybody knows about employee time tracking. But what about tracking machine time? I.e. the hours machines are being operated. Hmm, that’s a different thought. (scroll down for the video for inspiration)

Actually, tracking machine time is not an original thought. Just like airplanes, there are hour meters attached to machines. Turn them on, and the meter ticks away. So that’s nothing new.

What’s new is that you can now associate employees, work orders, and tasks to those hours. You can use Standard Time® to know which employee used that machine. Which work order were run on that machine. Which tasks were performed. That’s manufacturing traceability. You can now trace work order activity down to the machines it was produced on. That’s some cool magic. That’s Standard Time®.

 

Track time and inventory on the shop floor

Consider using barcodes to scan inventory items on the shop floor. Scanning inventory deducts those items from stock so you have a running total. Scanning those same inventory items at the receiving dock replenishes the quantity in stock. You can reduce the number of physical inventory counts just by scanning items as they come in and as they are used.

Turns out, Standard Time® also tracks employee hours and displays Work In Process for work orders. It’s not just inventory tracking. This is full time and materials tracking. Go ahead and download a free trial today!

Replenish Inventory By Work Order

The video below describes a sequence of events that automatically creates manufacturing work orders when inventory is low. (scroll down below video for more)

Let’s assume you pull items from inventory for manufacturing. (You manufacture something that includes other pre-built assemblies) You have to maintain stock of the pre-built items so they are always available for use in other product. Problem is, it’s hard to remember to restock inventory when it’s low. You may pull a few off the rack and never remember to replenish them. The last thing you want is to go back and find the rack empty! Now you’ve got to build those items before you can fulfill your orders.

Wouldn’t it be nice if you got an email when inventory stock fell? And even nicer if a new work order was created, telling you to build and replenish inventory? Such an automated system would let you keep inventory levels high enough to fulfill orders when they came in.

This video describes exactly how to do this.

The sequence goes something like this:

  1. BOM is scanned and deducted from inventory
  2. Stock quantity drops below a threshold
  3. New work order is automatically created
  4. Email notification is sent
  5. Employees build and replenish inventory from the work order
  6. Work order is completed and deactivated

Most of these steps are accomplished with barcode scanners on the shop floor. Employees may not realize the automation occurring in the background, but admins and project managers will appreciated it.

Barcode Expenses and Inventory

This video illustrates the process of creating expense records whenever inventory items are scanned on the shop floor. (scroll down for video)

So what, you ask…

So, that mean you have a record of every item you ever scanned. Actually, every item that every employee has ever scanned.

Think about that…

That means you are not only managing inventory effectively, but you are also collecting huge amounts of data you can use to your advantage. You are deducting inventory items from stock, which means you can reorder and replenish at appropriate times. Of course that’s good. But having a record of every scan is huge. Absolutely huge. Think of what you could do with that.

You might not know exactly what it costs you to build bepoke and custom products. Now you do.

You might not know what materials employees are using. Now you do.

You might not know the percentage of labor verses materials that go into manufactured good. Now you do.

Hmm… scanning inventory is not such a bad idea!

Now watch this video and find our website. Quick!

Track Time and Inventory

Everyone knows that Standard Time® is a time tracking app. But did you also know that it tracks inventory and bill of materials?

It does!                (see the video below)

And it does it with barcode scanners. You’re probably familiar with the barcode time tracking capabilities. You scan usernames, projects, and tasks. A timer starts, and you track manufacturing hours. Easy. But you can do the same thing with barcode labels and inventory items.

Create a label for the inventory SKU. Scan that label, and the inventory item is automatically deducted from stock. You can also scan the manufacturer’s SKU or the vendor SKU. Any of those will work the same. And when the quantity in stock is reduced below a preset value, the parts can automatically be reordered using scripts.

Scanning BOM’s are similar. In that case, the BOM lists all the inventory items for an assembly. When you scan the BOM label (or SKU) all the inventory items on that BOM are reduced from stock. And again, any inventory item that falls below the “reorder quantity” is automatically reordered using a script.

You may be wondering about reorder scripts. Those are special user-programmable scripts that send emails or contact websites for reordering inventory. You must program these reorder scripts yourself, which often involves the IT department.