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.
You asked for an overview of Standard Time® 2022, and here it is!
(scroll down below the video for more detail)
Standard Time is one of the best tools for manufacturing. You get work order status in a WIP screen. You get employee status. You get job status. Those dashboards are populated by barcode scans from the shop floor. Employees scan in, and scan out of their jobs. You get real-time metrics off the shop floor. You know exactly what’s happening, as it happens.
Have you considered using barcodes on your assembly lines? The little video below may inspire you to try it out. (scroll down below for details)
Standard Time® is the best tool for scanning barcodes on the assembly line. Thousands of employees use it every day. Companies gather work order data from those scans, and adjust production to match actuals on the shop floor.
For instance…
Reprioritize jobs, based on the progress of others
Notify clients when jobs pass milestones
Help employees become better at their jobs
Retool when bottlenecks become obvious
Got an idea of your own? Give Standard Time a try!
Your factory floor may be improved with Standard Time®. Here’s how: consider using barcodes on the shop floor to track time and materials. The little video below will serve as inspiration to check this out. Google “Standard Time Barcoding” on YouTube. You’ll likely find some videos on employee time tracking on the shop floor.
Here’s how it works:
Scan an employee name
Scan a work order
Scan a task name
A timer will start
Complete the task you’re working on
Scan your username again
Scan STOP
The timer will stop
You now have collected timestamps, employee, work order, and task for every job on the shop floor. Use that to improve workflow.
Alexa can be used on the manufacturing shop floor to control devices with barcodes. Want to see how? scroll down to the video below
First off, DO NOT use Alexa to turn on harmful devices like saws or presses. Bad idea!
Here’s how to control things on the shop floor with Alexa:
Set up Wi-Fi enabled plugs with names you recognize
Create prerecorded messages saying “Alexa, turn on XYZ”
Save those audio messages to your hard drive
Connect a barcode to an audio message in Standard Time®
Scan the barcode associated with a message
The prerecorded message will play on your computer speaker
Alexa will hear the message and do her thing
Watch the video, then scroll down for more detail
The genius behind this is method of shop floor automation is prerecorded messages. You can create as many as you like. Each one tells Alexa to do something. Record them with the Windows Voice Recorder app. Save the files to your hard drive. (Beware that you’ll likely need to convert these goofy Windows audio files to MP3. The Voice Recorder is too goofy and backwards to support that, so consider using another recording app instead.)
Now that you have sound files in MP3 format, you can play them with Standard Time® scripts.
What’s Standard Time?
Standard Time (Or, ST for short) is a manufacturing shop floor time tracker. Employees track their time and materials with it. Google it, and you’ll see.
ST plays MP3 files by use of scripts. Scripts have names, which you can scan as barcode labels. So, create a script that plays a sound, then create a barcode label with that script name. Scan the label to call the script. Magically, your Alexa commands will come out the speaker and she will do what you want.
Yeah, I know… it sounds a little sketchy. Contact the support folks at Scoutwest for some help. It’s really not hard, but there are some details you can mess up. The support folks will have you up and running quickly.
Yeah… but… why not just skip the barcode thing and yell commands at Alexa? Two reasons… 1. Your operators may not know the commands, and will need training and retraining. Computers don’t. They never forget. 2. Your Alexa commands may be so numerous that operators forget them all. See reason #1. So… it’s just better to let the computer handle all communication with Alexa.
Go ahead and download Standard Time if you haven’t already. Good luck!
Standard Time® develops barcode time tracking software. And we’ll teach you how to include barcodes on your shop floor. You can track employee hours, work order status, inventory and materials — all with barcodes. The video below is a nice inspiration to give this a try. Start by downloading Standard Time and connecting a USB barcode scanner to your computer. We’ll help you with the rest.
Adding barcodes to your assembly line can tell you where each job is being run. How? By scanning those barcodes when each job is run. In fact, you can collect a lot more information from barcodes. Scroll down below the video for some thoughts.
Assume you use three barcode labels to start each job.
Employee name
Work order
Assembly line
You can derive the following information from just those three labels:
Where the job is at right now
If the job is running, or has ended
How ran the job
When the job started
The estimated time elapsed and remaining
What department has the job
What assembly line is running the job
Capacity usage information about the assembly line
Work In Progress details
That’s a lot of information just from three scans. The product to try is called Standard Time®. You can download and give it a try today!
Using our barcoding software makes tracking manufacturing hours easy. How does it work? With barcode scanners.
This software is intended for employees who don’t use computers.
Simply pass barcode labels under a scanner, and the walk away. You’re now tracking time for manufacturing jobs and work orders. Watch the video below for inspiration, and then download Standard Time® and try it yourself.
Scanning barcodes on the shop floor can definitely make tracking manufacturing jobs easy, but placing your barcode scanner on a stand makes it even easier.
Watch the video below, then scroll down.
Yeah, a barcode scanner stand can really make scanning slick. Just pass the barcode label under the scanner and it is automatically scanned. You don’t even have to press the button.
You can try this in Standard Time® today. That is, if you have a scanner. If not, consider picking up an inexpensive scanner like the one shown in this video. Amazon has them for less than $40 USD.
Have you ever wondered (or needed to know) how many hours are spend running each machine in your manufacturing shop? Turns out, there’s a simple and inexpensive way to find out. It’s called Standard Time®.
Scroll down below the video for more…
How can know how many hours are logged to each machine in your manufacturing shop? Track the hours with barcodes. Scan barcodes taped to each machine and you’ll find out.
Actually, you’ll find out a whole lot more. Standard Time is an employee time tracking app that uses barcodes. Employees start and stop timers just by scanning. Part of that process could include machines. Those scans will come ripping into your ST dashboards in real-time. You can cut up the data any way you like.
Maybe you want to see just how much time each employee spends at a machine. Or, which jobs ran on which machines. Or, what the average usage per day is. Or month. Any of those scenarios are possible with barcode scanning in Standard Time. Give it a try today!
Don’t know where to get Standard Time? Try Googling us! Or, just go to stdtime.com. We’re always here. 🙂