A project management blog for manufacturing and engineering
You can add barcode time tracking to just about any manufacturing shop. Watch this little video for inspiration.
Just put a low-cost tablet on the shop floor. Add a barcode scanner to it. And now you’re tracking employee time! It’s pretty simple, actually.
Fab shops use Standard Time and barcodes for job tracking. Here’s how:
scroll down for a little inspiration video
And then read this:
Set up a $70 scanning tablet where employees can scan jobs. Tell them to start by scanning their name. Then scan a job number. A timer starts, and the employee is free to walk off and start the work. When they finish, they return to the scanning station, scan their name again, and then the word STOP. That’s it!
Now you’ve got timestamped records of job status. Wow, that was easy!
Give it a try at the Standard Time cloud site.
Want to track inventory usage on the shop floor with barcodes? The video below will show you how. It’s not hard.
You’ll just need a barcode scanner connected to any tablet or computer. Print your own barcode labels, or scan SKU’s on existing inventory items. A single scan records usage.
You can’t get any simpler than that!
Track job progress with ST
Here is an overview of Standard Time from a livestream webinar. It covers the very basics, and may help inspire you to try some of the features and capabilities in the program.
After viewing this overview, check out the ScoutwestInc YouTube channel for detailed videos.
Operators can use their cellphone’s on the shop floor to start timers for work orders, jobs, and projects. Just speak, and timers start automatically!
Yep, that’s right! Just speak to start work order timers!
Why is this valuable? Because everybody carries a mobile phone, and they are easy devices to record time, even on the job site.
Watch this little video to learn how.
The weekend is gone before you know it! And now it’s Standard Time!
Standard Time?
Yep, time to track jobs with barcodes and RFID using the best manufacturing software available. Standard Time. Check it out!
Have a warehouse? No? How about material racks? In any case, it’s easy to track inventory usage with barcodes. Just scan your name and the SKU. That item is now deducted from stock. Geez, that was simple.
Watch the video below for inspiration.
It turns out Standard Time® will also reorder inventory when it drops below a certain level. You get an email, and in some cases new materials show up at your back door the next day. That’s just in time inventory with Standard Time.
Rolling a “percentage” rock up a hill? Yeah, it sort-of makes sense. It’s a metaphor for working to increase your percentages. Okay, I get that, but percentages of what? And, what am I doing to increase those percentages?
Scroll down for a little inspiring video.
First, the percentages are your manufacturing efficiencies. I.e. how efficient you are at producing products. And second, you are working to improve your manufacturing efficiencies. So how do you do that?
Automation.
We suggest barcoding everything. Every work order. Every step in the process. Every consumable material. And every task employees perform. Now you can analyze that information for clues to inefficiencies.
Find those inefficiencies, and you improve your percentages. You’re rolling the percentage rock up the hill!
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.