For a finished product to be manufactured, it needs to go through various processes. The customer orders for finished goods and expects it to be delivered in a certain time frame. The customer keeps asking for the status of the finished goods and in certain cases there is a huge penalty if the finished goods are not delivered on time. It is the utmost responsibility of the manufacturer to deliver on time and satisfy the customer leading to long term relationship with the customer. If they do it consistently, they would see the benefit of high customer satisfaction. To enable this, manufacturers want to track the production across different processes. Hence manufacturers need a live production tracker that can accurately tell them the status of the order and answer questions like what stage is the material, what are the bottlenecks etc.
Following are the benefits of a live production tracker:
- Higher customer satisfaction by serving customers on time. Tracking production means faster action on issues, faster resolution
- Removal of bottlenecks: If there is an issue in the production process, if the item has not moved or is stuck at a process then manufacturer would take action and that would lead to removal of bottlenecks
- Proper communication inside and outside the manufacturing organization. Rather than relying on humans, now everyone in the organization including operators, supervisors and production managers can use the same dashboards. The live production tracker or real-time production tracker will also help customer success personnel to communicate properly to their customers
Now let us understand why manufacturers are not able to get a live production tracker easily. There are many challenges in achieving this and anyone associated with manufacturing would understand that getting information from the shopfloor is not so easy. However it is not the fault of the supervisor or operator as their main job is to produce. Let us understand the process.
Defining the production processes: For the manufacturer to produce a finished good, she wants different raw materials and then would convert this raw material into finished goods through different processes and applying different resources. A manufacturing unit consists of many resources like machines, manpower, tools etc. It may take one process or more than 10 processes to manufacture a good.
Collection of production data: When a production happens in one stage, it needs to be noted down by a human or through automation. The exact quantity and the amount of rejection also needs to be noted down properly. Same thing should happen when during production some rejection happens.
Analysis of Live Production Data: All this information is then collated in the central database. In some cases, companies use Excel or google sheets to do so. However Excel and Google sheets are not scalable and when the quantum of information is high, then it becomes a headache to maintain it.
Presentation of Live Production Tracker: Once the data is stored in one central repository, it needs to be presented in such a way that everyone should be able to find out the status of various production lines across the manufacturing shop floor.
Features of a live production tracker
- Real time visibility of goods on the shopfloor. Some manufacturers like to put a large display on the shopfloor of live production tracker
- Easy entry of production through a handheld device or through automation
- Easy scorecards and display so that the production manager, supervisor etc can view and check it instantly
- Notification and alerts if the production is not happening as per plan
Summary – Gone are the days when manufacturers would now know the status of the production. Now manufacturers want real time information on their mobile phone.
ManufApp’s live production tracker helps hundreds of manufacturers to produce efficiently, serve customers better and reduce wastage.