I can quickly view the complete status of my shop-floor and identify orders at risk of being late from my desktop. Instead of risk customer orders announcing themselves with a missed delivery date, I get pro-active alerts on my phone so that I can address the issue before it becomes a customer problem. – Mark Odom, VP Production, Bay Creek Manufacturing
BACKGROUND
Bay Creek Manufacturing manufactures a wide range of custom clothing and uniforms. They have 3 manufacturing facilities in Mountain View, Summersville, and Salem. Missouri. The main facility in Mountain View has over 25,000 square feet and produces customized and tailored versions of over 300 base product styles. Bay Creek follows a dynamic 15-stage manufacturing process, each involving multiple workstations. During peak season, they have thousands of work orders on the floor at any given time. Each of these work orders is further customized by color, style, and size and is tailored with braid, embroidery, and logos.
CHALLENGE
Bay Creek needed an efficient and automated way to:
Monitor the real-time locations and statuses of work orders
Monitor who is working on the orders
Estimate when orders will be completed
Automatically alert management to problems
Track costs at the various manufacturing stages
Track the history of each order and any associated electronic data
SOLUTION
Bay Creek receives a large number of unique orders. Dynamic load leveling among the workstations must be an ongoing activity that is based on priority and workstation resource availability. This requires real-time visibility. The solution was deployed by adding fixed barcode scanners at each workstation and having several mobile barcode readers to track order movements. Touch-sensitive screens at order pairing locations allow users to quickly pair-up orders with sub-orders. The workstations allow management and supervisors to immediately query the location and status of work orders. When a new work order is received, the system produces a work instruction sheet detailing all the order specifics and the production phases required. This order instruction sheet contains all the barcodes required to accurately track when an action starts and when it completes. An expediter with a mobile reader ensures that the work order passes through the required production stages. At each work station, the employee logs on to the system using the barcode reader and then scans the appropriate start and stop barcodes.
BENEFITS
Quick deployment
Immediate visibility
Instant ROI
Real-time, automated job location tracking
Employee-to-job association
Job duration
Job-completion estimates and forecasts
Performance analysis and metrics
Metrics for lean analysis
Complete electronic job history
Standardized quick reports
Multiple site integration
Demand visualization forecasts
Real-time alerts and notifications
Client access to order status
For an assessment on how your business can gain the benefits of this program.
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