Update Your MFG with Barcode Time Tracking

Use barcodes on the shop floor. They are a great way to update your mfg processes. Just a few barcodes on work orders will give you a wealth of new information. For instance, you can learn the status of every work order in the shop. Where it is now, who worked on it last, and the estimated completion. You’ll get all that just by scanning barcodes.

Download Standard Time® and give it a try.

CNC Operators Track Time with Barcodes


  1. They first scan a username to identify themselves
  3. Then scan a task or activity they are performing
  5. The CNC operator performs the milling operation
  6. When finished, they scan their username again
  7. Then they scan STOP
  8. The timer stops
  9. Manufacturing managers now have a bunch of new information:
  • start and stop timestamps
  • employee who did the work
  • work order and task status
  • Work-in-progress status



Assembly Line Work Order Tracking

How do your manufacturing managers know which orders are running on which assembly lines? Got software for that? Yeah? Then you’re good to go!

Software to track orders in manufacturing is called an MRP. What’s an MRP?

An MRP is a manufacturing resource planner. It is used to plan and schedule resources like assembly lines, equipment, materials, and even human resources. I.e. employees.

Standard Time® is an MRP. It tracks projects and orders on assembly lines. Or, if you don’t have assembly lines it tracks orders through your manufacturing facility. Find out where each order is, what status it is in right now, and how much work is left to go.

Watch the video and then give it a try.

Total hours for past due tasks

An important part of project management is to identify past due tasks so they can be dealt with. Past due tasks can be customer jobs you’ve agreed to deliver by a certain date or tasks that need to be finished before others can start. (scroll down for a video)

In any case, consider using the tool below to identify past due tasks. You can get a list of them and the total number of hours left to do.


Advantages of Barcode Scanning

The video below outlines some advantages of tracking time with barcode scanners in manufacturing. I won’t give away the secrets, so you’ll have to watch the video, but there are several good reasons why barcodes make sense on the shop floor.

The older ways of tracking time never really worked well. You got fake information that was so expensive to collect that it wasn’t worth it. But what if you could get real information with simple barcode scans. That might be interesting.

Watch the video and tell us what you think!

Manpower Dashboards Tell The Future

“Look into the crystal ball and I’ll tell your future”

Well, Standard Time® doesn’t exactly work that way, but close. Look into a manpower dashboard, and it tells your future… the future weeks of employee project commitments that is. In other words, whether your employees will drown in over-commitments or relax with little or nothing to do.

Ideally, somewhere in the middle would be nice.

But that’s what you get with the stand-alone resource allocation dashboards. They sit out on managers screens, updating periodically, and telling the future of project assignments and manpower requirements. They don’t get a lot of glory, but they perform a nice little service you’ll come to rely on, and perhaps a little more reliable than your average carnival palm reader.  🙂

Here’s a quick video to introduce you. Hope you like it!


Barcode Scanner and Tablet on Shop Floor





Barcode Scan Qty Items Produced



You get that information with barcodes.


You can now compute:

  1. The time it took to produce each item
  2. The total items produced on a shift
  3. The total items produced for a client

You also know:

  1. Which employee statistically produces the most
  2. Which jobs are most efficient
  3. Which assembly lines or production techniques are the most efficient




Track Production with Barcodes

“I can’t use a computer with a welder in my hands!” Does this sound familiar? Here’s a solution: Use barcodes to track time instead of asking your employees to enter time.

Scanning barcodes is a hundred times more accurate than typing hours into a computer or even entering them into paper timesheets.

Watch this short teaser, then scroll down and follow this line of reasoning.

Employees who attempt to enter hours on either paper or computer timesheets can make a lot of mistakes. First off, you can’t remember what you did earlier in the day, let alone earlier in the week. It sounds nice to collect hours on timesheets, but it just isn’t accurate. You’re getting fake data and you don’t even realize it.

Why not use barcode time tracking instead?

Scan barcodes when you start and stop jobs. The actual time will automatically be entered into employee timesheets. Every sliver of project time adds up. Employees don’t need to know how to use computers. There’s no mouse or keyboard. You simply scan to start, and scan to stop. What could be simpler than that? Now you’re getting real employee time, not fake time.

Download Standard Time® today!