A project management blog for manufacturing and engineering
A timesheet so easy your cat can use it!
All your projects are listed — ONLY your projects.
All your tasks are listed — again ONLY your tasks.
All you have to do is fill in your hours. But don’t let your cat do it. You’re boss can tell the difference! 🙂
Calling all nerd engineers! You will want to memorize this!
Standard Time® has so many valuable capabilities and areas for nerds. Dig into the details, dig into the numbers, dig into the dashboards! This is where nerds earn gold stars for nerdiness, and where the rest of the company gets valuable manufacturing data. Of course, it all starts with barcode scans on the shop floor, and builds into actionable data. Get started today!
Learn how to enable and use PTO functions in Standard Time®.
If you’re using ST for barcoding in manufacturing you might also consider allowing employees to enter time off requests for PTO, sick time, personal time, training, etc. Employees will get a bank of hours for each reason you enable. That keeps track of hours available to them for each reason they take time off. In addition to that bank of hours, ST also automatically calculates accruals. So, employees can earn hours periodically for each of these reasons, then request time off for the hours they have available to them. Now you have a fully automated time off system. Pretty nice!
Use your voice to control timers when tracking manufacturing work orders.
Yep, voice control over work order timers. Now!
Let’s say you’ve got twenty work orders on the shop floor at any given time. Or fifty. And, you want to measure how long they take. Turns out, you can start a timer using voice control, and stop the same timer at a later time, also with voice.
The video below shows how.
Here’s a quick tip for office worker who need to collect time using a timer. A single click will start or stop a timer for a given task.
Standard Time® displays tasks assigned to you. A single click will start a timer to record your work. When you’re done, just click again to stop it.
You’ll probably also notice some right-click menus that offer other timer options. Go ahead and explore!
How can I add barcoding to my manufacturing shop? You’ll just need a Chromebook connected to Wi-Fi, some barcode labels printed in a word processor, and Standard Time® manufacturing software. That is the simplest collection of tools to do the job.
After assembling those items above, you can collect employee hours for work orders on the shop floor. The barcode scans will tell you the employee who did the work, the start and stop times, actual work, work order, client, and any other scans you want to collect. Print it out, export to Excel, or pay employees by their scans.
Shop floor operators can see upcoming jobs they are scheduled to work on, using a single scan.
The video below shows how to display a list of upcoming jobs operators are scheduled to work on today and this week.
Here’s a quick way to find if timers are running for time logs, projects, users, and project tasks. This lets you check shop floor timer status, which is usually started by scanning barcodes.
Your employees are starting timers in Standard Time with barcodes, right? Those timers use projects, tasks, and people, true? Then the method in this video should help you identify which jobs, tasks, and people have timers running at any given time. Simple!
Check them after everybody has clocked in and out to make sure everything is as expected.
Watch the video and let us know what you think!
The video below describes a sequence of events that automatically creates manufacturing work orders when inventory is low. (scroll down below video for more)
Let’s assume you pull items from inventory for manufacturing. (You manufacture something that includes other pre-built assemblies) You have to maintain stock of the pre-built items so they are always available for use in other product. Problem is, it’s hard to remember to restock inventory when it’s low. You may pull a few off the rack and never remember to replenish them. The last thing you want is to go back and find the rack empty! Now you’ve got to build those items before you can fulfill your orders.
Wouldn’t it be nice if you got an email when inventory stock fell? And even nicer if a new work order was created, telling you to build and replenish inventory? Such an automated system would let you keep inventory levels high enough to fulfill orders when they came in.
This video describes exactly how to do this.
The sequence goes something like this:
Most of these steps are accomplished with barcode scanners on the shop floor. Employees may not realize the automation occurring in the background, but admins and project managers will appreciated it.
The video below is a cute way to illustrate cutting manufacturing time. Fact is, you gotta do it one way or another. You can’t keep going the way you are, with manual processes and verbal work order communication. You have to automate. (scroll for the video)
Barcodes are a great way to automate work order processing.
Just scan your username, work order, and task. A timer starts that contains the employee and job, plus a lot of other information related to clients, machines, assembly lines, and locations. You’re collecting about a dozen other little things that can be reported on.
What do you do with all that information? Find ways to change. Improve. Adjust. Every improvement you make has the potential to save you money. That’s how barcodes cut manufacturing time.