Posted on

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

Posted on

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.

Posted on

Strategies for serial numbers when barcoding

I don’t know how to get those pesky serial numbers to show up while barcoding! I need to track time to serial numbers on my widgets, but how? Where do the serial numbers show up in your time tracking app? Are they projects or tasks? How do I even start?

Start by watching the video! (scroll down)

Then, consider creating projects for serial numbers you’ll be scanning many times over a long period of time. Or, consider creating tasks for serial numbers you’ll only scan for a few days or weeks. It all depends on what the serial numbers and barcode labels represent.

In the end, you’ll get the same employee hours in the timesheet, and time logs in your reports. You’ll see how many hours each employee spends on your projects and tasks. You’ll see how much time was spent on each product. On each kind of work. On each step of the manufacturing process. All that information makes your process more efficient, and cost effective.

Here’s the basic process you will follow:

  1. Scan an employee name
  2. Scan a task name (representing a serial number on one of your widgets)
  3. The timer will start
  4. Perform the task
  5. Scan username again
  6. Scan the word STOP

That basic exchange collects a lot of information:

  1. How long the employee worked
  2. How long the project took to manufacture, assemble, box, and ship
  3. How long each serial number took
  4. How many times you touched the product
  5. Who touched the product
  6. When they touched the product
  7. How much time you’re spending on each kind of work

Posted on

Create Project Tasks from Barcode Labels

Do you use project tasks in Standard Time® to track your manufacturing hours? Good, lot’s of people do. And do you scan those tasks to start a timer? Excellent, you’re in good company. Are you starting to wonder if there is a way to automate the process of creating project tasks from barcode labels?

Bingo!

Now you’re onto something. That’s the exact topic of this video. How to create project tasks directly from barcode labels that you’ve printed somewhere else.

Here’s the thing: you’ve got barcode labels you want to scan for manufacturing purposes. Those labels were pre-printed somewhere else. (You didn’t print them.) But you want project tasks in ST so you can track time to them. Your only solution is to manually type in each task. That’s okay, because you’re getting a lot of automation from the from the scanning once the tasks are created. But still, you’re wondering… could these tasks be automatically created?

They sure can!

Just scan barcode labels and the tasks are automatically created. Once created, you can scan the labels again (at different workstations) to start timers during manufacturing.

Watch the video and let us know your thoughts.

Posted on

Barcode Labels Report

Here’s a quick “report” that prints barcode labels for a selected project and all its tasks. Comment on the video below, and let us know what you think!

We use the word report in quotes because its not really a report. Instead, it’s the barcode labels for any given project. That’s not really a report, right?

But you may find this useful if you’re tracking time in manufacturing or assembly. Start by scanning your employee name. Then scan the project name followed by the task. A timer will start to record your employee jobs.

Scan the word STOP to stop the timer. Now you have time logs with start and stop times. Lots of them! You’ll see scans come into the system in real-time. Now you can use them for all your wonderful reasons. Here are some to consider:

  1. Learn how much time each employee works
  2. Learn how long projects actually take to produce (rather than guessing)
  3. Get actual time for each task of a project
  4. Find out how long each product takes to manufacture and ship
  5. Compare manufacturing time to admin time (what percentage is each)

Posted on

RFID Time Tracking for Mfg

Start and stop a timer with any RFID reader for manufacturing and assembly. This video will give you an idea of what kinds of RFID tags are available. They come in all shapes and sizes so you should be able to find one that fits your process and budget.  Scroll down below the video for more.

 

All you have to do is pass a reader over an RFID tag to start a timer in ST. Then pass the reader over it again to stop the timer. ST will collect time stamps you can use for reporting.

You’ll know how long every product took to manufacture, how long employees spent on products… and when the product started and ended its life-cycle through the shop.

RFID readers connect to the USB port of any computer. They are simple to use. Just plug them in and begin passing RFID tags over them. ST will create time logs for every scan.

 

 

Posted on

Start a timer with RFID Tag Reader

Learn how to start a timer with an RFID tag reader. (scroll down for the video) You can buy a starter kit for about $30 that contains an RFID reader and some cards and tags. That’s all you need to track time with RFID. Check amazon.

Already got RFID readers installed?

Now that everything is in place, you can start and stop a timer in Standard Time® using with just a simple RFID scan. Wave a proximity card in front of the RFID scanner and a timer starts. Wave it again, and the timer stops. Now you’ve got some serious time tracking data to work with.

Every RFID scan in Standard Time includes the following information. Of course the end user doesn’t realize or care that all this is automatically collected. They just wave their card and go on. But you can use this intel to improve manufacturing, assembly lines, or just for employee time and attendance.

What is collected in every RFID tag scan:

  1. Employee name, and the workgroup they are in
  2. Timestamps for start and stop times, including the actual hours between those timestamps
  3. Project the employee is working on
  4. Task the employee is working on
  5. Client the project is assigned to
  6. Billing rates assigned to the employee
  7. Client cost for the full duration between scans
  8. Salary cost for the full duration

Seriously? All that is collected in one scan? Yup. Pretty powerful.

What you can report on with RFID scans:

  1. Total employee hours for a given date range, like last week or last month
  2. Total project hours for all the projects in your organization
  3. Total client hours
  4. Salary and client billable amounts
  5. Client invoices

Watch the video and try it out.

Posted on

Start Timer with Mag Card Readers

Manufacturers: Use a mag card reader to start and stop a timer. Consider swiping cards to start and stop a timer for manufacturing purposes. Swipe once to start the timer, and swipe again to stop. The video below describes how.

This technique allows you to associate any employee badge or card to a Standard Time® username. Swipe once to start a timer for the associated user. A selected project and task will start. The timer will run until you swipe again.

Manufacturing and assembly shops can collect information like total product build times, total employee hours, packaging time, and shipping. Find out how much time you spend on each kind of work, and improve each one by a small percentage.

Download Standard Time here, and give this a try with your own magnetic card reader.

Posted on

Track Time with Multiple Barcode Scanners on a Single PC

Manufacturing shops can now set up multiple barcode scanners on a single computer to track assembly time, boxing, and shipping. Watch the video below to learn how.

Here’s the deal… you don’t want to dedicate a single computer to every barcode scanner. In other words, one computer for one scanner. You have too many shop floor operators to do that. It’s a waste of resources, and every PC needs care and maintenance. You want to connect as many barcode scanners as you can to each PC on the shop floor. As long as workers can see the screen, you’re good to go.

Turns out, barcode prefixes are the answer. Assign a unique prefix to each barcode scanner on the manufacturing floor. Then you can connect as many as you like. Standard Time® will recognize the prefix and start timers for each scanner.

Not only can you connect multiple scanners, you can set default values that take effect every time you scan. Want to associate a dedicated gun to one single employee only? Easy, just set the default username. Now the employee no longer needs to scan their username to start the timer.

Other default values let you associate a gun to a certain project or task. Every time you scan with that gun, your project and task is already chosen for you. No need to scan them. The timer will start immediately, without the need to tell it which project you’re on.

All these little improvements to barcode scanning make your manufacturing process just a little more efficient. Give it a try!

Posted on

Manufacturing Runs on Standard Time

On the odd chance your manufacturing shop is not running Standard Time® we’re suggesting this video. It’s a cute little animated job that really only serves to inspire your thoughts along those lines. (scroll down for it) But hey, you’re already running ST anyway, right?

No? Then take a look.

There’s a module in ST that lets you scan manufacturing barcodes to measure time. Find out how much time each product takes, each product line takes, and how long employees are actually spending on manufacturing the actual parts.

Follow these steps to scan a part in your shop:

  1. Begin by scanning the employee name
  2. Scan the project name
  3. Scan the part or serial number
  4. The timer starts
  5. Perform your step in the manufacturing process while the timer runs
  6. Minutes or hours go by…
  7. Scan your employee name again
  8. Scan the word STOP
  9. The timer stops, and you now have one time log with the exact time this employee spent on this single part.

Collect a few hundred of these time logs and you have a valuable asset you can use in meetings, with clients, on invoices, or in post project analysis.

How huge is that?