You can’t determine the true cost of a job until you know all of the labor time involved. Without an integrated system to track all labor, overhead, and material expenses, manual systems are required leaving management to determine the true costs of a job one or two days after the job is completed. We understand the frustration that can cause, so let us make your job easier by introducing you to secret #4 to reduce cost on the shop floor: more accurate job costing and estimating.

With Global Shop Solutions, our customers typically close the work order on the same day the job is finished, with complete confidence that all costs are accounted for. The integrated system and real-time reporting from Global Shop Solutions ERP software provides the truth between estimating and actual results. By comparing the employee’s time on the job with the estimate, our customer can assess the accuracy of their estimator and/or determine whether employees are performing up to the estimator’s expectations.

After the onsite training Global Shop Solutions customer Frederick’s Machine & Tool Shop, Inc. received, Controller Ovide Mercure immediately launched several changes to improve the ability to track production data.

Right away he installed barcode stations and scanners on the shop floor to capture labor time more accurately. The stations enabled the company to eliminate the manual time cards by having operators electronically log into workcenters. For the first time, managers could see exactly how much time employees had on each job and whether the quote aligned with actual performance.

“Now we can determine our true costs as soon as a job is finished. Supervisors simply print their work order detail reports and the costs are right there for all to see. Having this data allows us to analyze our quoting and pricing to make sure we’re charging what we should for every job. In the past, we mostly guessed.”

– Ovide Mercure, Controller, Frederick’s Machine and Tool

Stay tuned next week to learn about our fifth and final secret to reducing cost on the manufacturing shop floor, or download our whitepaper for the full list today.

Adam Grabowski is the Director of Marketing for Global Shop Solutions. He is responsible for strategically positioning the company and its ERP software product to make existing customers more successful and compete for new business opportunities in the manufacturing industry.