Category: Manufacturing

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?

No texting on the shop floor, or you’re all fired!

No barcode scanning unit labels either! That would tell management exactly how long each unit took to manufacture, and how long each project took, and how much time employees are working.

No! We can’t have that!

Do you want to drag us out of the dark iron age, and into the modern world? Because that’s exactly what barcode scanning on the shop floor would do. We’d no longer enjoy the dark, unlit manufacturing environment where workers sling hot steel and toil long hours until after nightfall, and come in Christmas morning to catch up on stuff they didn’t finish Christmas Eve. Instead, efficiency would climb, and workers would have more time for simpler tasks and family and lunches. Nope, that would just not do.

Manufacturing barcoding is just too dangerous for this shop floor!