Things to Scan on the Shop Floor

Get inspired to scan!

Ever wonder what you can scan on the shop floor to automate employee time track, work order and inventory management? Here’s a list, and a video to inspire you. First click the link to open a whitepaper with the full list. Then watch the video for inspiration and ideas. Try applying one or two things from this list. Grow your manufacturing automation and become a hero!

Things to scan on the shop floor:
https://www.strdtime.com/things-to-scan-on-the-shop-floor

The full video:

Welders Track Time

Even a fat-fingered welder can track time with barcodes. So there’s no excuse for missing work orders, unknown job status, or who-knows-where-that-job-went excuses. Just grab a barcode scanner and clock in!

To be fair, welders have some of the best hand-eye coordination of all human beings — fat-fingered or not. It’s the engineers that can’t tell their butts from a butt weld. So really, barcode time tracking is good for everyone!

One more for the road: Why do they only give welders ten minute breaks? Any longer and they’d have to retrain them. 🙂

Shop Floor Organization

One of the best things you can do to save manufacturing admin time is barcodes.

Here’s why: Most shops report their employee time with handwritten timesheets. Workers fill in a sheet for their week and hand it to their supervisors. Have you considered replacing that step with scanning barcodes instead?

You save the minutes and hours that accumulate in filling them out, and you save the human error that results from attempts to remember work performed. You also save transcription mistakes when reentering the hours into other software. Just scan and go!

Barcodes are the best!

Track Employee Time

Shop floors can get messy but that is because work is being done. In the end, you still need to track work orders and employee time , even in a hostile environment. Consider barcodes, or even RFID for time tracking in such places.

RFID is completely solid-state, and immune to dust and chemicals. just swipe and go. Nothing bothers RFID… not dust, dirt, grease and grime, grinding dust, or oils. It’s really the best choice for hostile shop floors.

Here’s a little video to inspire and remind you to try Standard Time® with RFID or barcodes.

 

Metal Workers Scan Barcodes

Metal workers do not sit down at workstations, and hunt and peck. I guarantee that!

So, how do you collect time and inventory usage for them? Uhhh… we don’t.

Try this: give them a barcode scanner and Standard Time®.

Tablets on the Mfg Shop Floor

How do you collect time and materials on the shop floor?

  1. A work order sheet, filled in by hand?
  2. Verbal communication with shop floor supervisors?
  3. Not collected or documented?

Why not consider using tablets and barcode scanners?

 

The video above is just a reminder to look into Standard Time®. We’ve been successful in automating job shops, bespoke, built to order shops with just a simple scanner and tablet. The cost is low, and the value is high. Many shops have completely changed processes based on what they’ve found from this simple collection process. Just scan a few labels, and you’re collecting a huge amount of actionable information.