Standard Time® Graphical Timesheet

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From http://www.stdtime.com Here’s a quick video showing how to use the graphical timesheet in Standard Time®. You’ll notice seven tabs along the top. I have the Timesheet tab selected; then click this little gray triangle over to the left, choose Graphical Timesheet. You’ll also notice there is an expense sheet for entering materials and expenses. And there are some other options here for the regular timesheet.

Let’s choose Graphical Timesheet and there are already some entries in here. You can double click on them to enter notes and other choices. But if you want to enter a new selection simply drag, drop and enter your notes here. Click save and close, in this case it wants me to choose a project for the job that I’m doing. And probably is going to want me to choose a task. Once I’ve done that click save and close.

I now have that entry. I can drag and drop to change the times or duration. Or again double click on it to put in more notes or choose other options. That’s how it works. You can switch back and forth between the graphical timesheet and the normal calendar timesheet to see your time log entries. Hope it helps.

See more at: http://www.stdtime.com

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Read more on our website: https://www.stdtime.com/blog/standard-time%C2%AE-graphical-timesheet.htm

Tablets on the Mfg Shop Floor

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Here's a quick way to get actual employee hours on the shop floor: use a cheap tablet with a barcode scanner. Scan jobs, tasks, and materials. Now you know exactly what jobs are in progress, and what materials are being used. See more at https://www.stdtime.com/barcode.htm


Read more on our website: https://www.stdtime.com/blog/tablets-on-the-mfg-shop-floor.htm

Use barcodes for task status on the shop floor

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Get task status on the shop floor by scanning barcodes. In fact, just look up on the big screen for a Work In Progress display. The last task status is display in WIP. Employees start and stop timers, record task and project status, and record materials used -- all from barcodes.


Read more on our website: https://www.stdtime.com/blog/use-barcodes-for-task-status-on-the-shop-floor.htm

Update Your MFG with Barcode Time Tracking

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Consider updating your mfg shop with barcode time tracking. Scan work orders and tasks at each stage of the manufacturing process. Now you know who worked on the job last, what stage it is in, and the estimated completion time.
 
 
 

Read more on our website: https://www.stdtime.com/blog/update-your-mfg-with-barcode-time-tracking.htm

Mfg software

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Track manufacturing hours using barcodes.
 
 

Read more on our website: https://www.stdtime.com/blog/mfg-software.htm

Shop Floor Barcode Scanning

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Hi everyone, Ray White from Mfg Projects I’m here to introduce you to barcode time tracking on the manufacturing floor. There are a lot of advantages to tracking time right on the shop floor with barcode scanners. Consider these three to start:

1. First, you’ve got work orders or manufacturing projects, but how do you get actual work hours from employees that don’t use computers? Or don’t sit in front of a workstation? The answer is, with barcode scanners. That’s advantage number one, and it’s a big one.

2. Number two; barcode scans are the most accurate way to track projects. No more fat finger, mouse, clicking, fake time entries, trying to remember what you did last Tuesday, or last week. You just scan… bleep, bleep, bleep, and a timer starts. Bleep, bleep again, and it stops. That’s real data; nothing fake about that.

3. Number three; you collect a lot of extra information in just a few scans. The work order, the client, the employee, department, task, phase, status, kind of work, percent complete, not to mention actual start and stop times. This is a river of data coming off the shop floor.

That was just three. There are others you’ll see in these videos.
So, if you want to track actuals on the shop floor verses estimates, barcode scanners are the way to go.

Hey, I’m Ray White.
Good luck on your manufacturing projects!


Read more on our website: https://www.stdtime.com/blog/shop-floor-barcode-scanning-2.htm

Project Task Link Relationships

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Every manufacturing project has tasks, or steps, phases, or activities that define the work you'll perform. And some of those tasks are dependent upon others. In other words, you can’t start one step until another is completed. Or, there may be phases later in the process that won’t start until previous phases are finished.
Those are called task dependencies. Tasks are linked, and their dates depend on previous tasks.

In this video, we’ll look at four types of task dependencies that model actual conditions on the shop floor.

Let’s take a look!

Here on Standard Time® we’ll look at four distinct types of link relationships that you can see by the lines and the arrows in the Gantt chart. The first one we’ll look at is finish-to-start, which is the most common; then start-to-start, then finish-to-finish and finally we’ll take a look at start-to-finish.

Let’s go ahead and look at the most common link relationship which would be the finish-to-start. The starting date of a successor task is linked back to the finish date of another. When this task ends another can start. That’s the most common. We’ll move this task and you can see the next task updates because this one has been moved. Finish date on this one changed so that changes the starting date of the successor task.

The next type would be start-to-start. You can see the starting date of this task is linked back to the starting date of another. When that one is moved then the successor is also moved because the two start dates are linked together.

The third type would be finish-to-finish, where the finish date of this task is linked back to the finish date of another. We move that, the two finish dates are linked together and when the predecessor moves then the successor would also be updated.

The fourth type would be start-to-finish, where the starting date of this task goes down to the finish date of another. When we move this task then the successor also moves because the starting date is linked back to the finish date.

The examples you see down below are variations of we already looked at. We’ve got start-to-start; when the starting date of this task changes then the starting date of a successor task would change. We’ve also looked at the finish-to-finish; so when the finish date of this one changes then the finish date of the successor would also change. So you can combine these to form a nice little link relationship.

The long lines you see on these milestones are lag times. If we click on this link icon in the link column; we can go ahead and look at the lag times that you see connected with these link relationships. I should point out that the inbound tasks that you see here, actually none here, are predecessors and the outbound tasks are the successors. They are linked together with certain link relationships. In this case they have some lag times. I’ll click here, you can see the finish-to-start link relationship; which we already looked at. And a lag time of two calendar days. Close that and look at this one.

We have start-to-start, which we’ve also looked at previously with minus-four calendar days. Cancel out of these and that explains the long lines that you see here linked to these milestones. That covers the four distinct types of link relationships in Standard Time that you can use for your projects.


Read more on our website: https://www.stdtime.com/blog/project-task-link-relationships-2.htm

Scheduling Projects for Manufacturing

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Hello manufacturing managers! Do you ever have trouble scheduling jobs for production? • You have to get them slotted quickly • But you also have to find available resources • And you can’t overload them with too many jobs. That’s a challenge! Have you tried Standard Time? With Standard Time, a Resource Requirements chart updates as you drag projects in your Gantt chart. Now you instantly see the impact on labor and materials. Like the idea? Download today! www.stdtime.com/manufacturing


Read more on our website: https://www.stdtime.com/blog/scheduling-projects-for-manufacturing.htm

Assembly Line Project Allocation and Scheduling

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If your manufacturing shop has assembly lines, you might like to see which projects are running on each line. Turns out, there’s a tool for that. It’s called Standard Time, and it answers a lot of similar questions like:

1. Which assembly line has a free slot for my next project?

2. Which lines are booked?

3.What is the utilization rate of each assembly line?

4. Which assembly line is my project running on?

5. And others

Let’s have a look at project resource allocation in Standard Time, and specifically how that relates to work orders… or projects… running on assembly lines.

Here we go!

We’ll start by choosing tools, assembly lines here in Standard Time®. This will give you a list of assembly lines in your operation; you can click the + symbol to add new ones and then set the properties on those assembly lines. I won’t go into the properties here; that’s not the focus of this video; we’ll be talking about project resource allocation on assembly lines. You probably would want to right click on an assembly line and choose assign projects.

You’ll notice that you can have multiple projects assigned to a single assembly line. Normally those projects would execute sequentially, so when one project ends the next would start. That would allow you to see the task and project allocation to assembly lines and spot gaps or slots where you can put new projects.

You may also use the project tasks tab and Gantt chart to see a timeline of those tasks into the future. Then choose view, Project, Resource Allocation. You’ll notice I’m looking at all projects here, I’m going to click this last option. And then choose an assembly line from the drop down. Here you can see all the projects that are allocated to this assembly line. Pick another one and you see the allocation for that assembly line.

You may also notice the Gantt chart is still visible behind this resource allocation window. I can grab tasks and projects and drag them and see the effect that it has on that assembly line. You can spot the slots where new projects could be added and use this as a tool to slot new projects for your assembly lines.


Read more on our website: https://www.stdtime.com/blog/assembly-line-project-allocation-and-scheduling-2.htm

CNC Operators Track Time with Barcodes

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Close tolerances and tight sales margins? Keep track of work orders using barcodes. CNC operators use barcode to track manufacturing time on the shop floor. Here's the process:


Read more on our website: https://www.stdtime.com/blog/cnc-operators-track-time-with-barcodes.htm

Manufacturing Resource Allocation

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What really is Project Resource Allocation? And why do manufacturing managers care about it? In essence, it’s just looking into the future and making sure: • You’re using project resources the best possible way •And that nobody is over-allocated • And nobody is under-allocated Nice! But is there a tool for that? Sure, it’s called Standard Time® It’s a project management and manufacturing tool for your shop floor. Download a copy from www.stdtime.com/manufacturing

 

 


Read more on our website: https://www.stdtime.com/blog/manufacturing-resource-allocation.htm

Organizing Manufacturing Projects

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In this video I will introduce you to Standard Time®, a Manufacturing Resource Planner. We’ll look at five ways to organize projects for your manufacturing operation. In other words, how to group and report on projects of differing types. The groupings I’ll show are: 1.Portfolios 2.Folders 3.Clients 4.Status 5. And assembly lines

These are all optional. Use any or all to visualize and report on your manufacturing projects.

Want to take a look? Here goes!

Let’s begin by choosing Tools, Projects in Standard Time®. This is the place where administrators would set up projects and set the properties for them. Right off the bat you see folders where projects can be dropped into; create your own hierarchy of folders, that would be the first level of classification. You also, on the right-hand side in the properties, see client, portfolio and status.

As I click on the different projects you can see those fields changing. You could use clients for external or internal clients, that you’re doing work for or departments. If you don’t have any of those three you might consider using client for a completely different purpose for classifying projects. Portfolios of course would be for different kinds of projects that you do, you could group them together by kind. And then you can also set the status, which is another form of classification for projects.

So those are four quick ways you can classify projects. You also have assembly lines which you see over on the left-hand side. How can you use these classifications or groupings of projects within Standard Time? The first way would be to use this tree on the left-hand side to filter the views on the right. You see tabs along the top, I’m looking at the project tasks tab, which shows all of the projects and tasks within Standard Time. I can use that tree on the left-hand side to filter this view. I could, for instance, open the clients section, click on a client. Now I’m looking at just the projects, which are these wide blue bands, or this particular client. Or go down to project portfolios, click on a portfolio, and I now see all the projects for that portfolio. Or go over to folders, click on a folder and I see the projects for that folder.

If you have assembly line set up you could click on assembly line and see all the projects that are running on that assembly line. So lots of different ways to categorize, visualize, group your projects. Another way might be to go to the view menu choose project, resource allocation, you see a few buttons at the top of this drop down that you can use to find all the project resource allocation for a certain folder. Or for a portfolio or for an assembly line. Or see all of the projects.

Another way would be to the view menu, choose project revenue, you have those same buttons that you can look at all the revenue for a folder, portfolio and so on. You have these groupings available within reports as well. If I open time log reports I can see reports by client or by portfolio. You could create custom reports that used folders, status or assembly lines as well. Lots of different ways to use those classifications to visualize, group and report on your manufacturing projects.


Read more on our website: https://www.stdtime.com/blog/organizing-manufacturing-projects-2.htm

Manufacturing Resource Requirements Software

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Every manufacturing project, work order, or job has resource requirements.And every successful manufacturing manager monitors them -- one way or another. That’s what makes Standard Time® a good choice for project scheduling. •Drag projects on your production schedule, and watch resource requirements update instantly • Find over-allocated and under-allocated conditions • Manage headcount Haven’t tried Standard Time in your manufacturing shop? Download today! www.stdtime.com/manufacturing


Read more on our website: https://www.stdtime.com/blog/manufacturing-resource-requirements-software.htm

Manage Manufacturing Projects

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Manage your manufacturing projects With Gantt charts, task links, resource allocation And Standard Time®
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Read more on our website: https://www.stdtime.com/blog/manage-manufacturing-projects.htm

Work in Progress on Shop Floor

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View work orders on a big screen Right on the shop floor With Standard Time®


Read more on our website: https://www.stdtime.com/blog/work-in-progress-on-shop-floor.htm

Project Revenue From Work Orders

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Work orders come through your manufacturing shop every week. And you schedule them for production with Standard Time® software. Nice! But did you know there’s a handy bar chart for future revenue? That’s right! Pull up a chart to see expected revenue for jobs you: • Won • Or lost • Or are still in progress Think of it as a sales funnel for manufacturing work orders. Check out Standard Time here: www.stdtime.com/manufacturing


Read more on our website: https://www.stdtime.com/blog/project-revenue-from-work-orders.htm

Total hours for past due tasks

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Want a quick tip for your manufacturing projects? Follow the steps in this video to see all your past due tasks and the total number of hours to go. There’s a quick way to do this in Standard Time®. That’s a time tracking and project management app built for manufacturing. Here’s how to see all your past due tasks.

I want to see the total number of hours for all the tasks I have to do that are past due right now. To do that I’m gonna go over to the Project Tasks tab. I’ve already displayed the Duration, Actual Work and Remaining. The Remaining is the most interesting column because that shows me the total number of hours yet to do on tasks.

I displayed these by going to the View menu, choosing Columns, you see them listed here on the left. I added them to the right and then put them into position. The next step is to go over to the Task Completion section and click on Past Due Tasks. That shows me all of the tasks that are past due at this time but I still need to see a total. I’m going to right click, choose Show Totals; it turns out I have 2700 hours remaining on past due tasks. I’ve only completed 66 hours, which is 2% of those. So, this is the work I have ahead of me right now.

See more: www.stdtime.com/manufacturing


Read more on our website: https://www.stdtime.com/blog/total-hours-for-past-due-tasks.htm

Project Revenue From Gantt Chart

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A common function of Manufacturing Resource Planners, or ERP’s, is to compute estimated project revenue. Standard Time® is no exception, which we’ll see in a minute. For this video, we’ll assume that most of the projects or work orders going through your manufacturing shop have lifecycles. In other words, they start, and they end. And they have some estimated revenue.
Turns out, that’s the exact information needed to chart revenue for coming months.

Let’s examine the Project Revenue bar chart in Standard Time. This is a nice little chart you get for free, just by using project tasks in your manufacturing projects.

Alright, let’s switch over now, and get a look.

Here in Standard Time® we see a nice little bar chart that shows project revenue on a month to month basis. You can look at it for all projects or a specific project or by folder, portfolio or other criteria like whether you’ve won or lost a certain projects. You can look at it for a certain client and then chose a time period for the bars.

Real nice but where does the information come from? Let’s take a look and find out. Close this, go over to the Tools menu choose Projects. We’ll click on a project and then scroll down, you’ll see a start and finish date and then an estimated cost. The bars are getting the information spread across the duration of the project and the value of the project. You can either enter these values manually or find that they update automatically from your project tasks.

As you add tasks, edit tasks, drag and drop on the Gantt chart; those values will be fed up to the project level and then ultimately into the Tools, Project Records which you see here. Now when you go to the View menu choose Project Revenue, you’ll see the revenue for each month, the projects in your operation.


Read more on our website: https://www.stdtime.com/blog/project-revenue-from-gantt-chart.htm

Things You Collect with Barcode Scanners

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I’m going to show you about a dozen interesting things you can scan on the shop floor for your manufacturing work orders and projects. Here’s the point of the video: When you move your manufacturing data collection from keyboard-and-mouse to barcodes you immediately gain efficiency and accuracy. You’ll see those areas here.

Take look. You will like this!

You probably already know you can scan time and materials for work orders and projects on the shop floor for your manufacturing jobs. But it turns out there are a lot other things you can scan. So this will be a quick survey, not a complete tutorial on scanning. Just a survey of things you can scan.

Let’s start by going to the Tools Menu choose Users and Organization and here you will see a list of your users or employees in an organizational chart. You’ll scan these names when you’re collecting time and materials. You can also go to the Tools menu and choose Projects. Here you will see a list of your work orders. You can scan a name or a project code to begin collecting time for a project. And narrow it down by scanning a task name. That will allow you to collect actual hours for tasks, compare those against estimates and get a percent complete.

Go to the File menu choose Project Wizard to create a new set of project tasks under a work order. If you want a simpler system you could always go to the Tools menu and choose Categories. Enter categories and use those instead of project tasks.

Going back to Projects, it turns out that on the shop floor you can have operators and workers scan the project status. So that you have the status for a job that’s out on the shop floor. You can do the same thing for project tasks, you can mark them as complete by scanning special bar codes that would set the status of these projects and tasks.

Moving on from collecting time it turns out you can go over to the timesheet, click this little gray drop down. Go into the Expense Sheet and create what are called expense templates. You can scan these descriptions, they will then create a new expense record in the expenses tab. They can optionally deduct from inventory or deduct an entire bill of materials from inventory. So that when you scan that name it does two things; you’ll see the expense records over here in the Expenses tab.

Moving on from there if you go to the Tools menu and choose Inventory you’ll see a list of all your inventory items which you can import. You can then scan that name or a SKW, a code or other SKWs that would deduct that inventory item from stock. It can also be used the other way around to create a new expense record. You can either use expense templates or directly scan the inventory item and create a new expense record that indicates you’ve scanned that item.

Going over to the Tools menu choosing Bill and Materials, you can scan an entire bill of materials. Which is really just a collection of inventory items. And when you do it would deduct this quantity from each of the inventory items in stock. You can also scan tools; if you create tools here you can scan this name, or a code, or a model number a serial number. That would allow you to check tools in and out and collect actual hours for the tools in your tool bin or in the shop.

There is a work orders area where you can scan work orders, you can scan a special code to indicate that those work orders have been built. That is a special area that is a little different than going to the Tools menu and choosing Projects and creating your work orders right here. So you get to choose either way you want to do that.

Going back to the F4 barcode window you are able to click information that is completely unique to your organization. Just by clicking the required scans button in the lower left-hand corner. When you do you can create these scans here. And here is just two examples; one might be to collect the number of items you’ve produced or a scan indicating whether task passed or failed. Obviously you’ll create your own scans here and when you do the information will go into time logs which are displayed here and on your reports.

Another thing you can scan is in Tools, Scrips you can create a special scrips that would allow you to preform special operations like send emails, send status, updated database, order parts, a lot of different things that allow your workers to communicate status back to administrators in the manufacturing process.

A lot of things that you can scan here in Standard Time®. This has been a quick overview that should hopefully inspire you to try some of these things for yourself.


Read more on our website: https://www.stdtime.com/blog/things-you-collect-with-barcode-scanners.htm

Advantages of Barcode Scanning

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I’m going to discuss some reasons why barcode scanning on the shop floor for manufacturing is a pretty good idea.

One of the reasons, first of all, is that you may have non-computer users. Let’s say machinist, assembly line workers, forklift; people who don’t naturally sit at computer monitors or in a cubicle or not familiar with sitting in front of the keyboard and mouse and operating software. Giving them a barcode scanner and telling them to scan when they start their jobs and tasks allows you to collect that information without them having to be real true computer users. Where they would sit in a cubicle. That’s a really a big advantage; you’re able to gather information without forcing those people to learn all new ways of gathering it.

The next-you’re not going to be getting fake information. When you force a person like that to sit in front of a computer or to even to fill out a paper timesheet; a lot of times you get fake information. They’ll fill out their timesheet on a Friday afternoon, they completely forget what they worked on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, even the morning of Friday they are unsure what they worked on. They’ll fill out what they think might be it and the fact is about half that information is fake. The exact times, the exact hours, the exact jobs all escape our memories as time goes on, as days go by. You lose that information and the data becomes fake and false. But they give their best effort.

That is not true with a barcode scanner. A barcode scanner collects at the moment the work is performed. That means it’s not faked. You can’t fake a scanner. You will occasionally get some wrong scans but the fact is you’re getting real live up to date information with a barcode scanner.

The next thing you’ll get is more information. If people fill out paper timesheets; sometimes they just don’t remember as we’ve said before. And they don’t have the information readily available at the top of their head, they simply put down a few things and that’s it. The barcode scanner collects it all-every job, going on lunch break, cleaning the shop, doing maintenance work, GNA type jobs, meetings and then of course the actual project or client work that you’re doing. So you’re collecting more information, more kinds of information, you’re able to use that.

That information becomes very valuable, first of all, for collecting or comparing actuals with your estimates. People are always surprised at how long things actually take. That’s probably because we’re used to these verbal communications, status reports or paper timesheets where you fake the information. But if you collect it for real people are shocked at how long things actually take. How much time they spent doing these tasks or even doing non-project work. Comparing actuals with estimates is a huge advantage when it comes to barcode scanning because you’re getting real information and you’re able to do real comparisons.

You can use that information for resource availability. You can look out into the future and say OK I’ve assigned these employees these groups or work groups to projects, I’ve assigned assembly lines or assembly bays or assembly areas to these projects. And now what is my resource availability? Are these people available for new jobs? Is that assembly line open for new jobs, are my resources available? These are some of the things you get by collecting actuals, knowing how long things take, be able to create good estimates and then assign those estimates to actual resources. Like people, machines or assembly lines and then be able to use that for future reference. Sort of in the lines of production slotting; you’re slotting jobs to physical and human resources. Like assembly lines, you’re slotting these lines for use at these particular times for these particular jobs. You’re able to then look at the resource availability for those assembly lines but also the manpower requirements for each job. And knowing whether you’ve over allocated or underutilized these resources in the future coming weeks and months.

Some things to think about collecting barcode scans on the shop floor using those as comparisons for actuals versus estimates. And then the slotting of resources, the resource commitment, the manpower requirements that you need. Take a look at Standard Time®, those are the kinds of things we do and you’ll find that to be a wonderful resource and a great tool for manufacturing and the shop floor.

See more at: http://www.stdtime.com


Read more on our website: https://www.stdtime.com/blog/advantages-of-barcode-scanning.htm

Work In Progress on the Shop Floor

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The manufacturing shop floor is buzzing with business. So how do you know the status of your jobs? • Has a certain job started yet? • Who worked on it last? • Is it almost finished? That’s exactly what you get from the Work In Progress screen in Standard Time®. Imagine a big screen on the shop floor with the latest job status, like those arrivals and departure screens at the airport.


Read more on our website: https://www.stdtime.com/blog/work-in-progress-on-the-shop-floor.htm

Advantages of Barcode Scanning

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I’m going to discuss some reasons why barcode scanning on the shop floor for manufacturing is a pretty good idea.

One of the reasons, first of all, is that you may have non-computer users. Let’s say machinist, assembly line workers, forklift; people who don’t naturally sit at computer monitors or in a cubicle or not familiar with sitting in front of the keyboard and mouse and operating software. Giving them a barcode scanner and telling them to scan when they start their jobs and tasks allows you to collect that information without them having to be real true computer users. Where they would sit in a cubicle. That’s a really a big advantage; you’re able to gather information without forcing those people to learn all new ways of gathering it.

The next-you’re not going to be getting fake information. When you force a person like that to sit in front of a computer or to even to fill out a paper timesheet; a lot of times you get fake information. They’ll fill out their timesheet on a Friday afternoon, they completely forget what they worked on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, even the morning of Friday they are unsure what they worked on. They’ll fill out what they think might be it and the fact is about half that information is fake. The exact times, the exact hours, the exact jobs all escape our memories as time goes on, as days go by. You lose that information and the data becomes fake and false. But they give their best effort.

That is not true with a barcode scanner. A barcode scanner collects at the moment the work is performed. That means it’s not faked. You can’t fake a scanner. You will occasionally get some wrong scans but the fact is you’re getting real live up to date information with a barcode scanner.

The next thing you’ll get is more information. If people fill out paper timesheets; sometimes they just don’t remember as we’ve said before. And they don’t have the information readily available at the top of their head, they simply put down a few things and that’s it. The barcode scanner collects it all-every job, going on lunch break, cleaning the shop, doing maintenance work, GNA type jobs, meetings and then of course the actual project or client work that you’re doing. So you’re collecting more information, more kinds of information, you’re able to use that.

That information becomes very valuable, first of all, for collecting or comparing actuals with your estimates. People are always surprised at how long things actually take. That’s probably because we’re used to these verbal communications, status reports or paper timesheets where you fake the information. But if you collect it for real people are shocked at how long things actually take. How much time they spent doing these tasks or even doing non-project work. Comparing actuals with estimates is a huge advantage when it comes to barcode scanning because you’re getting real information and you’re able to do real comparisons.

You can use that information for resource availability. You can look out into the future and say OK I’ve assigned these employees these groups or work groups to projects, I’ve assigned assembly lines or assembly bays or assembly areas to these projects. And now what is my resource availability? Are these people available for new jobs? Is that assembly line open for new jobs, are my resources available? These are some of the things you get by collecting actuals, knowing how long things take, be able to create good estimates and then assign those estimates to actual resources. Like people, machines or assembly lines and then be able to use that for future reference. Sort of in the lines of production slotting; you’re slotting jobs to physical and human resources. Like assembly lines, you’re slotting these lines for use at these particular times for these particular jobs. You’re able to then look at the resource availability for those assembly lines but also the manpower requirements for each job. And knowing whether you’ve over allocated or underutilized these resources in the future coming weeks and months.

Some things to think about collecting barcode scans on the shop floor using those as comparisons for actuals versus estimates. And then the slotting of resources, the resource commitment, the manpower requirements that you need. Take a look at Standard Time®, those are the kinds of things we do and you’ll find that to be a wonderful resource and a great tool for manufacturing and the shop floor.

See more at: http://www.stdtime.com


Read more on our website: http://www.stdtime.com/blog/advantages-of-barcode-scanning.htm

Work In Progress on the Shop Floor

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The manufacturing shop floor is buzzing with business. So how do you know the status of your jobs? • Has a certain job started yet? • Who worked on it last? • Is it almost finished? That’s exactly what you get from the Work In Progress screen in Standard Time®. Imagine a big screen on the shop floor with the latest job status, like those arrivals and departure screens at the airport.


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Slot Jobs for Production

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Slot manufacturing jobs with Standard Time® MRP software. Make sure every job is slotted for production. Make sure every production line has enough jobs to keep it busy. Make sure no production lines are over-allocated or under-utilized.


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Barcode Scan Qty Items Produced

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Sometimes in manufacturing you want to collect the quantity of items produced along with the time worked.In other words, you want the hours employees spend on work orders, and you also want the number of things produced during that time. You can use that information for reporting, invoicing and production KPI’s. Turns out, you can get most, or all of that information with a barcode scanner.

This tutorial shows how to collect those quantities in a program named Standard Time.

Let’s see how it works!

For this tutorial I have one simple project called “Electroplating 78102,” not very exciting, there are just three tasks. We’re going to scan the plate task and then collect the quantity of items that were electroplated. So let’s go ahead and press the F4 button on the key board to open up the barcode window. Then press required scans so that we can see the set up required to collect this quantity.

I’ve already go this entered, you can see I’ve named it quantity. I’ve put in a prompt that tells the employee what is expected. This is scan order number 1, you could actually have multiple things that you’re collecting and scan those in certain orders. I’ve also set this up so that we collect the information after the work ends, that’s when the employee knows the number of items that were produced. Or in this case the number of items electroplated. We’re going to choose to type it in instead of scanning.

If you have predefined barcode labels that you could scan; that’s actually a better method than typing. There are no conditions on this, it’s going to all users and the value is going to go into the text 1 field of the time log. Time logs are where we collect the time that has occurred on the tasks. We can also collect other information like this quantity. That’s going to go into the text 1 field.

I’ve got this all set up, we’re ready to scan the barcode window is open. Let’s switch over to MS Word so that you can see the barcode labels that I’ll be scanning. I’ve got my user name, I’ve got the project, I’ve got a task and I’ve got the word “stop.” We’re going to type in the number of items for the quantity instead of scanning it. But if you had barcode labels that were explicit quantities that could be scanned, that’s actually better than typing.

Let’s go back to the barcode window and first of all scan the user name, the project and then the task. Now the timer has started so presumably I’m off working on this right now. Let’s go ahead and close this, go over to the time log. You can see a new item in the list here. I’m sorting these so that the newest ones are at the top. The bold items are scans that are currently timing right now. While that happens I’m going to the View menu choose Columns and I’m going to scroll down here for that text 1 field. That’s the one we’re going to enter the quantity into. I’m going to click add and then move up, click close. You can see some other numbers that were entered earlier. This one is blank because we don’t have anything yet, we still haven’t completed the work and remember that quantity was going to be entered at the end.

Again let’s go ahead and press the F4 key and we’ll go ahead and scan the user name. That tells me the timer is running. I’m going to scan stop and now it’s asking for the quantity. Let’s type in 14, click close and the timer stops.

Go up here, we see the new record, we see 14. That’s a very simple way of setting up required scans. In this case to collect the quantities of items produced.

From http://www.stdtime.com


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