Basic Barcode Setup for Mfg, Scanning on the Shop Floor
- Details
- Category: Blog
- Published: Thursday, 22 March 2018 13:52
- Written by Ray White
This video will show you how to set-up Standard Time® for the very basics of barcode scanning on the shop floor. We’re going to scan just one work order and some tasks – that’s it. You probably know that Standard Time can scan a lot of other things, like projects, tasks, phases, steps, inventory, bill of materials, expenses, tool control, scrips; a lot of things. But we’re going to take a look at the very basics and then you can take it from there.
In Standard Time I have a virtually empty database that has just one work order. We’re going to set up the very basics to collect time on the manufacturing floor for work orders and tasks. One of the first things you might consider doing is going to the tools menu, choose users and organization. Here I have a list of each of the users that can scan, you can click the + symbol to create new users. Make sure they have license, everyone who scans or does administration needs those.
The next thing you probably want to do is go to the tools menu and choose projects. I have one project set up, you can click the + symbol to create new ones. Or you can right click on an existing one and duplicate that. I’ve got a simple list of tasks that I have set up, each one has a duration; you’ll see the actual work come in when the scans occur. And then there is a percent complete that will result from that.
Let’s switch over the time log, I’ll remove any filtering I have, and we can begin scanning. But first of all let’s switch over to Microsoft Word so that you can see how I created the barcode labels. We start with some ordinary text, there’s an asterisk before and after to tell the barcode scanner where the label begins and ends. You recognize these as user names, this is the work order, these are some tasks and a couple little admin things we may need. I’m going to select these, go up to the font menu and choose a special font which you can download for free which will turn ordinary text into a barcode label.
I’ve already got these printed out so let’s switch back over to Standard Time, press the F4 key, we’re going to scan. The very first thing you’ll do when scanning is to scan a user name. You see it show up there and then scan the work order and then a task. That starts the timer, you see the status there where it started and in the background you see a new time log that was created, so we know that the timer is running.
This is person has presumably started their work, they may want to walk off and start it so they can clear the screen for the next person to come up. You could share a work station or set up work stations with tablets for each user.
Let’s go ahead and scan another user, again we’ll scan that same work order, we’re going to have multiple people working on the same work order then another task. You see another record show up in the background, in the time log view and you see the status for that person. We can clear the display, another person could walk up at some point. The user then is going to end their work, they could start by scanning their name, and they see the status of the job that they’re working on. That always occurs when the scan you user name and then you would scan stop. That stops the timer, clears the display, another user can walk up, you see the status for that user and then we’re going to stop that.
Those are the very basics of setting up Standard Time for work orders and then tasks and then scanning those and seeing the results in the time log.
