Real-Time Production Reporting by Workers

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Video transcript on using MRPeasy manufacturing execution system:

Hi, in this video, we will show you how your shop-floor workers can, in real-time, see their tasks as well as report the progress of production operations, use of materials and deviations in production.

Shop-floor workers can use computers, smartphones or tablets for real-time reporting. MRPeasy can be accessed directly from a browser on any device. For mobile devices, we recommend using our apps for iOS and Android.

There are two different interfaces that can be used by the worker – the simplified Internet kiosk and the detailed “My Production Plan.”

To simplify real-time reporting, the Internet-kiosk is mainly designed for tablets and smartphones.

It shows the list of operations assigned to the user.  The operations are sorted according to their planned start time, so the worker should take the uppermost operation.

Click the “Play” button to start an operation.

If you take a break, click “Pause” and report how many products were processed thus far.

Click “Play” to start again and “Finish” to end the operation and report the quantity of the last part of processed products.

Note that this operation has been moved down the list. Completed operations of the unfinished manufacturing orders are at the end of the list.

When using the Internet-kiosk, the booked materials will be automatically marked “consumed” after the end of the first operation of an order.

Once the final operation of an order is finished, the manufacturing order is automatically finalized and the products are counted into stock. Operations of finished manufacturing orders are removed from the view.

It is possible to search for operations according to a manufacturing order, a customer order or by product or material.

If the advanced mode of the Internet-kiosk is turned on, it’s also possible to see the list of materials and attached files.

If several workers share one device, they can easily switch users with a single click.

If the reported quantity of the final operation differs from the planned quantity, or some materials could not be consumed according to BOM, an important note and a red flag will be added to the manufacturing order.

If needed, the production manager can correct the order quantity and consumed materials in the manufacturing order details page. 

The “My production plan” section of MRPeasy is for viewing and reporting more details in real-time.

In addition to operations, it is possible to report materials usage, add notes, see attached files, target lot number, lists of materials and the stock locations.

The buttons to report progress in real-time work the same way as in the Internet-kiosk view:

Click the “Play” button to start an operation, click “Pause” to report a break in operation and click “Finish” to end the operation and report the quantity of processed products.

Note that, unlike in the Internet-kiosk, in “My Production Plan,” the materials must be marked consumed manually.

If parts were consumed at once according to the bill of materials, it is possible to mark all parts consumed by entering a number of processed products.

Alternatively, the worker can mark materials as consumed line-by-line, by clicking the shopping cart icon at a material’s line and entering the quantity consumed.

If necessary, the worker can book extra materials and report over or underproduction.

When you click the “Consume” button, and the materials you are trying to consume are not booked, the software will try to automatically book the materials from stock and mark them consumed.

Alternatively, extra bookings of materials can be added manually with the “plus” button on a materials line, which will bring up the list of available parts in stock.

If some other items, which were not part of the bill of materials, need to be added, then by clicking the “plus” button on the top corner of the materials table, you can add these new items.

In the case of a worker producing less or more than planned, when the last operation is finished, the system proposes updating the manufacturing order quantity or leaving it as planned.

Finally, after finishing the last operation, the manufacturing order must be finalized by clicking the “Finish production” button. If some materials have not been consumed, the system will ask if you wish to release these back to stock or mark these consumed.

Now, we’ve finished production.

If the barcoding functionality is enabled, then both in the Internet-kiosk and “My production plan,” the worker can scan a barcode on the printed job traveler and only the operations from this manufacturing order will be brought up on the screen.

To learn more about barcode functionality, see our dedicated video, Barcode System: Printing and Scanning Barcodes.

There are several ways to assign operations to workers.

First, it is always possible to manually assign a worker or several to an operation in the manufacturing order details view.

Also, it is possible to define default workers for certain workstations or operations. The algorithm for automatically assigning the worker is the following:

In the first priority, the default worker is taken from the particular workstation details.

If that is not defined, then the worker is taken from the routing.

And if it is also missing there, then the current user – who created the manufacturing order – is assigned as the worker.

In addition, it is instead possible to group workers into departments and assign operations to departments.

All workers of a department can see all open operations that are assigned to their department. Once a worker starts an operation, this worker will be saved for the operation, and others will not see it any longer.

All workers are added as users to your account in MRPeasy. This is done in the “Human resources” tab in the settings part of MRPeasy.

If you are a shop-floor worker, you only need access to either the “My production plan” section or the Internet-kiosk section of MRPeasy.

For accessing the Internet-kiosk, all other access rights must be removed.

Here, in the user details, you can also add an hourly wage for each worker, which will be used to calculate the labor cost of production.

In this video, we demonstrated how real-time production reporting works in MRPeasy.

To learn more about the functionality of MRPeasy, please see our other videos!

Keywords: Manufacturing execution system, MES software, production reporting system, shop floor control, shop floor management, internet-kiosk, shop-floor reporting.