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Track Time For Machines on the Shop Floor

Everybody knows about employee time tracking. But what about tracking machine time? I.e. the hours machines are being operated. Hmm, that’s a different thought. (scroll down for the video for inspiration)

Actually, tracking machine time is not an original thought. Just like airplanes, there are hour meters attached to machines. Turn them on, and the meter ticks away. So that’s nothing new.

What’s new is that you can now associate employees, work orders, and tasks to those hours. You can use Standard Time® to know which employee used that machine. Which work order were run on that machine. Which tasks were performed. That’s manufacturing traceability. You can now trace work order activity down to the machines it was produced on. That’s some cool magic. That’s Standard Time®.

 

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Shop Floor Barcoding with RCA Cambio Tablet

Review of RCA® Cambio®  (scroll down to video)

This is a nice little tablet for manufacturing time tracking. The Cambio® is inexpensive and simple. It runs Windows 10 Home, so you may need to upgrade it to connect to your domain. But it will connect directly to your network with Wi-Fi. You can run Standard Time® BC for barcode scanning. The Cambio is not powerful enough for daily Facebook but it’s great for barcoding on the shop floor, which is what this video describes. I.e. manufacturing time tracking.

In the video, the Cambio® is shown connected to a barcode scanner through a USB hub. That allows a mouse to connect as well (all peripherals sold separately).

Since the tablet connects to your network through USB, it can talk directly to your corporate database. In the example in the video, a program named “BC” is used for scanning, and it talks directly to SQL on a server.

The screen is detachable, and a virtual keyboard may be used in Windows 10. That allows the tablet to be bolted to the wall and not handled to prevent breakage. In a setup like that, the tablet should last indefinitely even in the harshest manufacturing environments.

Consider downloading Standard Time® for your manufacturing time tracking.