In manufacturing there is a simple equation well worth repeating: When efficiencies in shop floor operations improve, productivity rises. Conversely, as efficiency declines, so does productivity. Those job shops and make-to-order manufacturers who can best realize consistent efficiencies in daily shop floor operations (e.g., labor management, activity tracking, etc.) have a distinct advantage over their competitors.

As time and attendance, payroll, job/work order costing and employee performance measurements are performed by a single input with touch screen, bar code or click of the mouse, efficiency and productivity are both improved. At the same station, materials management, work order status, review of drawings/prints and a myriad of other manufacturing processes build greater and greater efficiencies into the total system. Through these efficiencies businesses realize the benefits found in complete enterprise resource planning (ERP).

This is the classic data-driven Lean Manufacturing model used in shop production (as well as Six Sigma), and the result that manufacturing software achieves for businesses using Touch Screen Data Collection systems (TSDC). This article will provide a general overview of the TSDC, while three other articles to follow will address more specific functions of the shop floor systems tool. (more…)