You’ve probably heard the expression, “Time is money.” Nowhere is that truer than on the shop floor. The longer a job takes, the more it costs to run, which means that tracking this time is critical. To get the most accurate numbers, consider job time tracking software. Often the part of an ERP system, job time tracking software helps your shop with costing, scheduling, and efficiency.
Costing
One of the hardest costs to pin down for a quote is the time it takes to run the job. If your shop doesn’t track time or has an inefficient way of tracking time, then your quotes might not be correct. However, time-tracking software will show you how long it took to run previous jobs. Using times from similar, completed jobs, you can figure out how long it will take to run a new job. With that information, you will also know what your shop should charge for jobs.
Scheduling
Scheduling is the heart of the job floor. Everything runs smoothly when jobs take the amount of time scheduled. However, when jobs take longer, that can cause problems. Job time tracking will display which jobs are taking more or less time than you thought. With this information, you can make a more realistic schedule later, and potentially be able to rearrange your current schedule or add more over time, as needed, to make your deadlines.
Efficiency
Occasionally, if the shop floor is backed up, the problem may not be with time estimating, but with an employee. If an employee isn’t running a machine properly, it may take them much longer to finish a step than it takes anyone else. With job time tracking, you will be able to tell who these employees are and get them retrained so they complete a job more quickly. This change will give your shop more reliable deadlines and more accurate quotes.
Knowing how long each step on a job takes helps your shop with costing, scheduling, and efficiency. Each of these aspects has a trickle-down effect. By making more of your jobs run on time, your customers and your folks on the floor will be happier, which makes everything easier. Tracking time is just one part of a great ERP system. Implementing more parts of an ERP system will give your shop even more benefits.
Interested in learning how an ERP system can create value for you?
