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Track Manufacturing Time with RFID Tags

Put an RFID tag on every product. That will allow you to track it through the production process. (scroll down for video)

RFID tags cost about ten cents in volume, and one cent in really high volume. That makes them affordable enough to stick onto every product on the shop floor. Or have you already done that? In any case, now that you have them, you can track the time each product spends in production.

  • Scan once to start a timer
  • Scan again to stop the timer

Guess what? Now you have timestamps for every time you touched that unit. Add them up and you know the exact handling time. Here are some thing you could track:

  1. Track manufacturing time
  2. Track handling time
  3. Track employee time
  4. Track shipping and receiving

Watch the RFID video below and then download Standard Time®.

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How to Save 1% in Manufacturing

Some smart guy said, If you can measure it, you can improve it. So if that’s true, you should be able to measure the amount of time employees spend on the shop floor, and improve it, true?

scroll down for the video

In other words, just by knowing how long things take in your manufacturing process could lead to clues and ideas about how to shorten them. But how do you know how long things take? You could ask each employee to write them down. Then another employee could type in that information. Then another employee could compile the data into reports.

Or, you could use a barcode scanner.

You may be surprised to find small areas you could trim. And then you could measure your time again. And trim again. Until you trimmed one percent from your manufacturing time.

One percent? That’s peanuts! That won’t help us!

True. One percent is small. But do that ten times, and you have ten percent. Do I have your attention now?

That’s the whole point of this video. It asks you to shoot for one percent… and hopes you’ll end up at ten or twenty. It’s all about continuous improvement. Continuous measurement. Continuous time savings. Sure, that may mean new investments in manufacturing automation, but in the long run, time is money. You will save money if you save time. That is a virtual guarantee.

Grab a barcode scanner and give this a try.

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Order Status with Single Barcode Scan

Follow the steps in the video below to collect order status throughout the manufacturing process.Once you do that, you can find the location of any order on the shop floor, and the employee who touched it last. (scroll down for video)

Here’s how it works.

Employees scan order numbers (just once) at each workstation on the stop floor. Those scans go into the Standard Time software in real-time. Managers can then type in an order number and know exactly where it is.

This all happens because each barcode scanner has a unique prefix programmed into it. (Consult your user’s guide) The prefixes contain several user-defined values that indicate where that scanner is located in the organization. You set which building, department, assembly line, workstation, or stage the scan originates from. When employees scan order numbers, all that information is available to you. You now know exactly where any order is.

This order status feature is not related to time tracking. You could also track time if you wanted to, but that is optional. You could simply track order status, as a minimal effort, and then later begin tracking time for each scan.

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Barcoding in Manufacturing is Easy!

Barcoding is easy. Just slap a barcode or RFID on every box. If that box holds materials, you’re tracking what’s used in manufacturing. If that box holds a product, you’re tracking time spent manufacturing and developing it. Easy. Scroll down for the video below.

Barcodes and RFID tags let you collect these ten things:

  1. The time each employee spends on the factory floor or the warehouse
  2. The time each product takes to manufacture, package, and ship
  3. The time each task takes
  4. The time you spend on each kind of work
  5. How many items pass through your assembly line, building, department, or whole operation
  6. How many times you touch a single item
  7. The times of day you’re doing most of the work
  8. The materials you’re putting into products
  9. The expenses you’re incurring
  10. The percent complete each product is currently at

Wouldn’t you like to have that information? If so, watch this video and then go out to www.stdtime.com/barcode.htm.  You’ll find resources to help. To start, you’ll see the very basics of time tracking with RFID and barcode labels. Then, you’ll step up to more advanced techniques that let you collect time and materials, and use percent gauges to motivate employees to finish up jobs quickly.

 

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Percent Complete While Scanning Tasks

Employees on the shop floor now have task status while scanning barcodes, telling them how far long their tasks are, and when they are expected to end.

This is huge!                                                                 (scroll down the to the video below)

This small “percent gauge” acts as a motivator to help employees move forward and finish up tasks. Each time you start a timer with a project task, you see a percent complete indicator that informs you of the status of your tasks. When it approaches 100% you know it’s time to clean up and move on to the next task. Lingering past 100% is a no-no.

But how else would you know, without this indicator.

 

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Sync Microsoft Project Tasks with Timesheet

Here’s a persistent problem project managers face: Their project schedules are obsolete within a week of completion. So what is your solution to that?

(scroll down for a video solution)

One solution is to get input from the boots on the ground. Get the actual employees doing the work to enter the tasks they are working on, and updating estimates. If you combine that with getting time and material “actuals” from employee timesheets, you have just about everything you need to fix this issue.

Getting input from the boots on the ground

Here’s why:

Employees may not know the full strategic direction your project is going in, but they do know the tactical maneuvers to get things done. So let them have that input into your schedule. Let employees input their project tasks and update estimates based on their understanding of the conditions on the ground. That may be entirely different than your 30,000 foot birds-eye view.

Both perspectives help.

The video below shows how to sync project tasks with your timesheet, which lets employees on the ground have their input. Give it a watch, and let us know what you think!

 

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Collecting Barcode Info for Manufacturing

The basics of time tracking for manufacturing are time and materials. But did you know that you can collect more? This video shows how. Scroll down to watch.

You’re probably already collecting time for employees on the shop floor for manufacturing and assembly. You scan a username and project, and that starts the timer. So you’re getting the basics. That’s good. Of course you can also scan a project task or category to gather a little more information that can be reported on later. Everything you collect is intelligence.

But there is also a technique for collecting user-defined items. The video describes scanning a building name, an assembly line, a product line, and details about your product. These are details Standard Time could never imagine. But you can set up the software to require these special scans. Employees must scan your special requirements before the timer will start. That means you’re guaranteed to get them.

Think about all the special things you might like to collect, right where the work is done. Now give the software a try. You’ll get some awesome time tracking metrics you may have never thought possible.

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Barcoding Time and Materials for Manufacturing

If you’re barcoding both time and materials for manufacturing, take a look at this video.

You’re going to see how you can track both time and expenses with a barcode scanner. First you’ll scan the project and task to start the timer. Next, you can scan expense templates that represent the materials or supplies being consumed on the job.

Expense templates are used to represent all the fields you want per-populated in each expense record. They have a name you can scan. That names shows up in the timesheet, with the quantities next to it. Just scan once for each item being consumed. The quantity will update each time. Then look in the Expenses tab to see all the records you are accumulating.

Scroll down for the video.

Now that you have both time and expenses for the manufacturing process, you know exactly:

  1. How much time you’re spending for each employee
  2. How much time goes into each product
  3. Where that time breaks down into tasks
  4. How much each project costs
  5. How much of that project is time
  6. How much of that project is materials

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MS Project Materials and Costs

Do you want the actual end-users of your MS Project plans to have input?

After all, what’s a project plan without input and adjustments from the boots on the ground? It’s static and lifeless. The project manager creates the plan, and minutes later it’s out of date. Why? Because the project manager doesn’t know the actual conditions on the ground. Only the actual employees know that. So you need their input.

This video describes getting input in the form of materials and costs that are synchronized with MS Project. Get a look below!

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Walmart Nextbook for Barcoding

Run your shop floor or any manufacturing with this inexpensive tablet from Wal-Mart and a barcode scanner from Amazon. (Scroll down for video)

For about $200 you can have a wireless barcode station on the shop floor. Scan every job, and you will know the follow information about your operation:

  1. How much time each employee works on shop floor jobs
  2. How much time each product takes to manufacture, assemble, and ship
  3. How long each step of the process takes
  4. How many jobs you did in a week, month, quarter, or year
  5. Your average time per job
  6. Your average completion time
  7. Your worst job time
  8. Your best job time

This is how you eek out percentage points in efficiency. You trim one small thing at a time. And you keep trimming until your operation is as efficient as possible.