Manufacturing Shop Floor Data Capture (SFDC) with Time & Attendance

Keeping track of your employees productive and unproductive hours is a crucial task for any business who wishes to be successful. Having access to this type of information provides your business with the ability to view all unproductive hours and implement processes which will help improve individual employee productivity levels.

Shop Floor Data Capture

Organisations are always looking for ways to measure and develop the productivity of their employees. It is vitally important if they want to ensure their continued growth and success. To make sure of this, organisations need to have full control over their employees’ working hours – both productive and unproductive. The best way to do this is through the use of time attendance systems.

 

The use of these systems allows companies to record when their workers start their work and when they stop. They are also able to identify the kind of work as well as the level of productivity. Elf Productivity Limited is a provider of high quality time management and attendance systems that are both reliable and cost effective. We deliver top quality support with our time management software and valuable industry experience.

Shop Floor Data Capture (SFDC)

Our Ceequel® Time and attendance software can help increase companies knowledge of their shop floor.  Companies obtain granular data which ultimately saves on cost through fast and efficient data capture. Since data is captured on the shop floor itself and in real time, accuracy is guaranteed. It leads to a reconciliation of productive and non-productive time. Companies using shop floor data capture are expected to receive the following results.

  • Our state of the art touch screen terminals allow employees to select live jobs often by skill set. It helps increase productivity because all they need to do is simply use the terminal for selecting a job specific to the employee. With the system’s capability to track projects and see the actual time that it takes to complete the job, it is easy to compare actuals to standards or the target/budget time that’s meant for that specific project.
  • It is simpler and easier to select specific activities within a job. The activity tracking module allows for real time information on jobs as it progresses through the manufacturing process. The gradual and step by step progress of any project is visible by both management and employees.
  • It will capture quantities produced, waste and any reworks. This allows companies to measure the actual productivity and efficiency of their employees. Measures can then be taken on how efficiencies can be maximized.
  • Ability to restrict employees by their skill type. This means that the software will help organisations in making sure that only employees who have relevant skill sets are allowed on certain jobs. This makes the work more efficient and ensures that results will almost always be satisfactory.
  • There are certain jobs that need to be prioritised over others. With the use of our shop floor data software, companies are enabled to selectively place the jobs that need to be completed (in order of importance) in their proper order.

Combining the systems that we offer – with our unparalleled industry knowledge and expertise – allows us to provide organisations with a bridge between productive and non-productive time. Productivity is maximised while other non-productive activities including employees become clearer and more defined.

With the quality and capabilities of Ceequel® and our deep commitment to quality customer service, it is easy to see why we have managed to become one of the leading time management companies not just in the UK but in the whole of Europe. Please contact us or take a tour of our website to see how we can assist your organisation.

Why Shop Floor Data Capture Is A Necessity For Your Business

Keeping a record of your shop floor production numbers should be a crucial task for all manufacturing organisations. Organisations who don’t have a shop floor data capture system in place risk losing money. This is because these businesses are unable to monitor and identify the weakest points within their production process.

Time is money in the world of business, and that is particularly true when it comes to production on the shop floor. If you have a machine that isn’t producing the numbers you need, then every tick of the clock is taking money out of your pocket. That’s why businesses who are keeping an eye on efficiency make sure that they have a shop floor data capture programme in place.

What is Shop Floor Data Capture?

If you were running a website, you would have some sort of analytics program in place that fed you updates on your numbers: you would know which pages were getting the most views, how long visitors were staying on average, and you’d be able to get instant updates on how your traffic looked. Shop floor data capture performs a similar function, but it captures the numbers on production.

Shop floor data capture is a network of sensors which watch your production values, and which notify you of changes immediately. If, for example, you have a machine that should bottle 60 gallons of milk a minute, but that number drops to 50 per minute, those numbers will immediately be shot to your smartphone or work terminal. Once you know there’s a slow-down, you can track it to see if it’s holding steady, or if it’s getting worse. You can also compare the actual numbers to what you have to produce in order to determine whether the machine needs to be fixed immediately, or if you can wait until the production day is over.

Without shop floor data capture, these warnings often come far too late. With no electronic sensors keeping an eye on the shop floor, you might not know there’s an issue until you’re 200 bottles of milk short, or until there’s a backup in the machinery that leads to a serious problem that can be more expensive to fix. Shop floor data capture is an early warning system, numbers tracker, and data mine all in one, which is why these systems are becoming more popular every day.

For more information on what shop floor data capture can do for your business, simply contact us today!

Shop Floor Data Capture gives you Instant Access to Data you need

Making sure your company constantly hits its production targets is crucial if you want to remain in business. That’s why the implementation of a shop floor data capture system is imperative. Having accurate information to hand on production numbers during every part of the process allows you to identify where and when you’ve fallen short.

Numbers make the world go round, and they can be a matter of life or death for your business. If you need to fill orders, but find out too late that you haven’t completed enough of the product, then you’re in serious trouble. That’s why it’s important to get regular updates on your numbers by using shop floor data capture to keep tabs.

What is Shop Floor Data Capture?

The simple answer is that shop floor data capture is when you use sensors and computers to keep track of your production numbers. Say you were making lengths of pipe, under normal circumstances your machinery can produce 100 lengths in an hour, but due to a worn-out gasket that needs to be replaced you only produce 95 an hour. That isn’t a problem in the short-run, but over days and weeks that means you’re producing a lot fewer pieces of pipe than you thought. Shop floor data capture would notify you of the slower production, and you’d be able to fix the problem in time to keep your orders filled.

Shop floor data capture gives you instant updates on your numbers, making sure that if there’s a discrepancy between what you think you’re producing, and what you’re actually producing, then you can catch it quickly enough to fix the problem. Shop floor data capture keeps you up to date, and it ensures that you know exactly where you are in minutes rather than in hours or days.

For more information on how shop floor data capture can help your business succeed, simply contact us today!

Shop Floor Data Capture is the Canary in the Coal Mine for modern Businesses

As a production company, making sure you stay on top of your produce and waste numbers is an essential process if you wish to remain in business. Any drop within your production numbers could become critical as less stock means less money. That is why it is crucial for any company who produces a product to implement a shop floor data capture system.

In the days before OSHA safety standards, coal miners would bring canaries down into the mines with them, the little yellow birds would tweet happily in their cages, raising the spirits of the miners as they toiled away beneath the mountains. The birds, being so tiny, would also die if exposed to dangerous, invisible gases, which gave miners a warning to get out before they met a similar fate.

Shop floor data capture is kind of like that, if it was for manufacturers.

Shop Floor Data Capture: A Better Canary?

Let’s say that you run a printing company, and you have your machines set to produce 500 magazines an hour in order to meet your client’s needs (it’s just an example, you could easily use this with any product on the market). What you don’t know is that your presses are only putting out 450 an hour because of an easy-to-fix problem that’s hard to detect. You don’t realise your production is falling behind until you’re almost at the deadline and your numbers aren’t adding up. Shop floor data capture is a way to prevent this sudden, last-minute realisation

How Does It Work?

Shop floor data capture is fairly simple: you attach sensors to your production machinery, and those sensors capture the raw numbers in real-time. Those numbers are then provided directly to you, and if there’s a deviation from what you need to have, you find out in minutes or hours instead of days or weeks. The system is smooth, and it uses wireless communication to make certain you know what’s going on at the shop floor level so you can side-step any nasty surprises.

Put another way, no metaphorical methane is going to sneak up on you and your workers while you’re toiling in the mine. For more information on shop floor data capture, and how it can help your business, simply contact us today!

Capture of Data from the Shop Floor

Our Ceequel system works as one big database which monitors your employees performances by using information collected straight from the shop floor through the shop floor data capture system. Information about each individual employee’s time spent on each task is transferred in real time between both employee and manager.

The Ceequel system is a big data solution to the monitoring of employee performance using data captured directly from the shop floor. The system shares information about the time spent in each shop floor station between central management and each employee. The overview screen locates each employee’s current position in real-time and accumulates the data so that the sum of each employee’s activities can be plotted over time. All the information gathered is kept out of the influence of the employees and the managers. It is an all secure accounting record that will always reflect exact times and durations that have legal standing.

The software is based on Microsoft’s SQL Server technology, integrated with existing systems running in Windows. It can display a roster of information such as skills availability and manning levels summated in real-time for making shift change and absence planning decisions. This is a state-of-the-art development in the science of industrial management.

Exact performance information that feeds back directly to the employee has always been at the core of employee supervision. Many performance and absentee issues have always stemmed from what employees perceive as bias or inaccurate feedback from supervisors.

Surveys show that the vast majority (88%) of employee turnover issues stem from disagreements with supervisors or other matters of the work environment or culture. Nearly half (43%) of employees do not feel valued by their employers and most (71%) of employees describe themselves as “not engaged” or “disengaged” from their jobs.

Employees often cannot visualise their individual contributions to the goals of the company. Active real-time feedback can help employees confirm their contributions while giving supervisors more precise information about the effectiveness of each employee. Exact information can help managers make needed supervisory or training decisions. Big data solutions applied to employee record-keeping on the shop floor have vastly improved industrial processes in a wide range of applications.

Elf Productivity Limited owns and develops the Ceequel system code. We can help you by customising a system for your settings. Please contact us for more information.

Why You Need Shop Floor Data Capture Capabilities In Your Business

When a problem occurs all businesses should be able to respond and if necessary change. This is even more crucial for businesses within the production industry as one small change could potentially spell the end for their company. Having a shop floor data capture system in place would provide your business with the information needed in order to stop this process from ever happening.

Every business needs to be able to respond and change when it becomes clear that there’s a problem. For businesses who want to get the edge on their competition, while keeping their clients happy and production up, it’s important to invest in shop floor data capture.

What Is Shop Floor Data Capture?

Shop floor data capture is when you set up machines that can instantly record your production numbers and beam them wirelessly to you. As an example: say you were a candle manufacturer, you have seven machines going at once and they’re set to produce 200 candles each day; one machine is malfunctioning, and it’s only producing 180 candles. Sure, that 20 candles might not seem like much on the first day, but after a week that’s 140 pieces of lost product. If you only evaluate production numbers once a month then the problem will already have grown pretty big.

Now say you had shop floor data capture set up, these devices would keep an accurate count of the number of candles being produced, and they’d send an update to you to let you know there was a problem with the production numbers, that way, you would know the source immediately, and you could investigate it as soon as you saw the numbers slipping.

Elf Productivity Ltd. Is Here To Help

While there are a lot of different options on the market for shop floor data capture, Elf Productivity Ltd. has streamlined the process and made it as easy as possible to get results. Our software suite gives business owners all the numbers they need, and they’re updated regularly to ensure that no problem goes undetected for long. Not only that but this software is designed for ease of use, ensuring that all you have to do is plug-and-play.

For more information on how Elf Productivity Ltd. can help your business, or about shop floor data capture in general, simply contact us today!

What Shop Floor Data Capture Can Do For Your Business

As a manufacture making sure your machines are working to the best of their ability is crucial. If one of your machines encounters a problem during the production process your end numbers are likely to drop. In the short run this is unlikely going to hurt your business but over an extensive period of time your available product number will of significantly dropped along with your profit.

Imagine for a moment that you’re a manufacturer: you make dice, and the machines that put out your product can produce 5,000 dice per hour when they’re going full-bore. However, due to altered settings or small hiccoughs in the machinery, you produce 100 fewer dice every 2 hours. That might not be a big deal during any particular day, but over the course of a week, or a month, that takes a significant bite out of your available product and your profits.

Now imagine that you only check your numbers once a week, that’s a lot of lost energy and product you could have avoided if you’d used shop floor data capture.

What Is Shop Floor Data Capture?

Shop floor data capture is a process that keeps track of your output, and which gives you all of your numbers quickly and efficiently. Computer programs track efficiency, tally up the numbers, and send them to you over a wireless connection. Not only that, but these programs can alert you when a problem is detected. This means you find out immediately if there’s a drop in productivity, and you can examine the data over time to see what areas are causing problems.

Find Problems Quickly, Fix Them Fast

Anything that impacts your bottom line has ripple effects. If you can find the source of a flawed product, a slow assembly line, or any other issue, then you will be able to get more done quicker. Since you can’t be everywhere observing everything, Shop Floor Data Capture acts as your eyes and ears, notifying you when there’s a problem. All you need to do is to set up data capture devices, and to install a software suite that will conglomerate that data for you in a single place. Once you have that data, what you choose to do with it is up to you.

For more about shop floor data capture and how ELF Productivity Ltd can help, simply contact us today!

Take Advantage of Shop Floor Data Capture

Production companies can have any number of employees and machines working at any one time making it increasingly difficult for them to monitor time and energy. Meaning business are often unable to determine if employees are slacking or if machines are lagging behind. Fitting a shop floor data capture system in to your business will provide you with the opportunity to track each individual employees actions within each section of the production process as well as monitor machine production and waste numbers.

The Art of Chaos

Production is a stressful part of a business, especially having to monitor employees and efficiency of machinery. This responsibility is challenging while still maintaining a cost-effective production process. The amount of machines and employees are at times overwhelming. With each employee working in various parts of the process, it is often though to determine where there is potential to maximise time and energy. That is, unless you have the right software.

Monitoring All Angles

The unique ID swipe system that Ceequel® uses allows the seamless tracking of both individuals and groups: creating real-time result comparison on duration, efficiency, and productivity; giving the opportunity to recognise specific areas that need attention, in order to reach optimal employee efficiency. You can compare the detailed time records for production and employee attendance, for accurate individual productivity data. Our software even calculates performance based pay, then transfers this data to payroll for seamless accounting. These results are then used tweak the process, amplifying individual and group productivity.

Tracking Machinery

This software isn’t just for employees though, it also maintains the capacity to monitor machines as well, even using calculations to convert employee labour and machine usage into a monetary value which can then track machine down time, allowing you to locate areas to maximise efficiency, helping you monitor your production growth and discover needs for new equipment, ultimately increasing your productivity by process maximisation.

Contact us to learn more about how your company can take advantage of Shop Floor Data Capture and maximise your potential!

Data Capture on the Shop Floor

The numerous different types of software available for business departments has drastically grown over the years and now includes Time and Attendance systems. Ceequel Time and Attendance eliminates the need to record information using pieces of paper and storing them within filing cabinets. The system gathers accurate clocking information in real time, thus saving both time and money.

Big data software has developed from accounting, sales, marketing, and manufacturing project management to now include Shop Floor Data Capture systems. Ceequel® Time and Attendance software works with your corporate Microsoft SQL Server technology to seamlessly handle many of the tasks previously handled with piles of paper forms and painful hand calculation by the human resources department. The system will gather information and make calculations in close to real-time using data from continuous input. Gone is the punch clock, replaced by RFID information systems and easy-to-read ATM type terminals at work stations.

The employee can clock in at terminals located anywhere in the facility, once the employee clocks in, the reading cannot be modified, so you always have the assurance that the records are complete and accurate. Bradford Factor scores are continuously calculated for a running period to aid in the supervision of employees. Automatic adjustments can be made for disabled employees in compliance with the Disability Discrimination Act.

Virtual terminals simulate conventional clock-in systems, using a convenient graphical interface. They run on Windows-based equipment. Since they are software based, they are very flexible allowing users to monitor themselves, getting updates in real-time regarding their hours and other noted features of their performance. Security features allow modifications only by authorised personnel.

The system output identifies employees with photographs, it even designs photo-identification cards and badges. The Human Resources Department receives continuous updating of attendance, hours worked, overtime, calculation of flexi-time to be allotted, and holiday allowances that take account of length of service.

The system also handles shift patterns and outputs graphical shift rosters and rotations. An auditory notification to mark shift changes can be programmed into the system. Data capture provides aids in labour planning, records absences and manages absence allowances. The system simplifies supervision by recognising exceptional bookings-in, recognising when clocking activities are outside of normal, no clockings, or patterns of missed clockings, more or fewer hours than expected, patterns of lateness, or unplanned attendance.

Elf Productivity LTD. supplies and adapts time management and attendance software and terminals to meet your needs. Please contact us for more information.

Shop Floor Data Capture Saves You Time And Money!

Modern day technology now makes it possible for businesses to record and transmit employee data in real time making it easier for managers to make accurate decisions quickly. A shop floor data system has the ability to do the above and much more.

One of the most important things business owners can have is information, and the fresher that information is, the better. Thanks to modern information technology it’s possible to record and transmit business data in real-time, which means that it’s possible for businesses to make decisions more quickly and accurately than they could before. This process is often referred to as shop floor data capture.

What Is Shop Floor Data Capture?

Shop floor data capture is, in short, the process of capturing data as projects and events are unfolding in real-time. Whether it’s recording the hours that employees spend on certain tasks, or compiling the number of units produced by a given machine, all of that information is recorded and transmitted instantly. It allows business owners to get a good look at what’s happening on the floor, and they can make decisions and implement policies quickly to make sure problems are swiftly corrected.

Examples often work best to explain how this process works, so let’s take a hypothetical situation: there’s a manufacturer with five machines that all make wire ties. In the past the numbers would be tallied at the end of the day, compiled in a computer, and then printed out at the end of the week. So if there was an error in the third machine that was subtle, and which could only be detected in its slightly reduced output (which has become a largely reduced output by the end of a week) then it will take up to seven days to notice it. A shop floor data capture program would point out those numbers quickly though, and the problem could be brought to management’s attention by the end of the first day. This saves time, and more importantly money that would have been lost due to wasted energy and a depleted product.

Just One More Feature Elf Productivity Ltd. Offers

At Elf Productivity Ltd. it’s out goal to give businesses the best possible tools to get the job done. Our software suites are designed to be simple, organic, easy-to-learn, and to provide clients with all of the features they need to keep productivity up, waste down, and to serve their customers better. We offer shop floor data capture, but we also provide features like employee self-service, automated time clocks, and dozens of other helpful tools that will make sure your business never misses a step.

For more information about how Elf Productivity Ltd. software can help your business simply contact us today!