ERP Software

Shop Floor Software

A Shop Floor may be defined as literally the floor of a factory where work is done on machines, or as the space in a retail establishment displaying the goods which are being sold. Manufacturing businesses tend to have shop floors where the goods or products are actually being produced. The advent of MRP and ERP has today led to software specific to managing shop floors.  Shop Floor Software is comprehensive manufacturing software that provides businesses with total shop floor control. Designed just for job shops and contract manufacturers, Shop Floor Software is able to put together a big picture of the business operation allowing for streamlined business processes, increased productivity, and further profits. Shop floor software permits superior scheduling, work in progress tracking, data collection, and labor management. Most systems will also interface with ERP systems to deliver valuable business intelligence that can be used for accounting and forecasting at the highest levels.

Shop floor software is designed to collect data from the factory using a variety of technologies including: touch screen terminals, barcode scanners, RF readers, and standard PCs. If the software has good shop floor data collection capabilities, the system uses this assembled information to provide business leaders with the ability to make better decisions in real-time.

There are some basic pieces of information that all manufacturers need from their Shop Floors. For example, what machines are running, which employees are working, whether or not they have all the parts needed to fill the day’s orders, and how efficiently are the goods being manufactured. Without Shop Floor Software, this data all has to be collected manually, and then entered into reports of some sort or spreadsheets, creating hours of unnecessary paperwork and data entry. The benefit of Shop Floor Software is that these same procedures can take place on the floor with just a few touches of a screen –or perhaps even with a scan of a barcode, allowing for increased productivity.  Shop floor software not only supports increased productivity, but it can also assist manufacturers achieve more from the floor machines because machine monitoring is one of the components of this software.

The more straightforward it is for a shop floor manager to see what is truly happening on the floor, the easier it is for that manager to understand the shop floor data that is being generated.  And this will aid in maintaining control over the entire operation, permitting him or her to make changes where improvements are needed or when unanticipated alterations occur.

Written by :

Amy Cruz