Shop Floor Insight
A comprehensive MES solution for barcoded time capture and employee time management.
Shop Floor Insight is a Manufacturing Execution System add-on for Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central that significantly reduces the labor costs and entry errors associated with manual data entry. Shop Floor Insight allows employees to use barcode scanners or touch screens to speed up shop data input for time, material, quality, and more.
Professional production management
Shop Floor Insight utilizes barcodes or touch screens to simplify data capture on the shop floor and reduce the errors associated with manual time entry.
Streamline shop floor data capture
Enhance data capture and management using Shop Floor Insight’s intuitive user interface. Employees can quickly record time against production orders, non-productive activities, and maintenance using shared or individual shop terminals or devices.
Significantly reduce rework
Rework is a major issue for many manufacturers. Identifying and capturing rework time can often be extremely tedious and difficult with manual systems. Shop Floor Insight makes it simple to capture rework on the shop floor and to analyze the root causes to help reduce costs and improve productivity.
Real-time reporting
Real-time reporting enables users to analyze job progression and costing; providing immediate feedback to supervisors and planners while maintaining a detailed production history. Shop Floor Insight data is easily accessible through Power BI and other tools for detailed reporting.
Shop floor staff can clock-on and clock-off of tasks using a smartphone
The Shop Floor Insight app for Business Central enables users to track their work time on the shop floor using their smartphones. With this app, users can clock in and out of tasks directly from their mobile devices, providing an efficient and convenient way to monitor shop floor time and ensure accurate time tracking. This app helps streamline the time tracking process and provides real-time visibility into shop floor activity, making it a valuable tool for businesses looking to optimize their operations and improve productivity.
Drastically reduce time and attendance data entry
Reduce labor costs and data entry errors
Automate the time collection process to significantly reduce the labor costs and data entry errors associated with manual entry. Users enter time and attendance information directly into Dynamics 365 Business Central, with simple supervisor approvals.
Built-in validation and configurable payroll rules eliminate manual payroll data management. Shop Floor Insight’s intuitive shop floor interface reduces training time and minimizes change for the end users, helping to ensure a successful and cost effective rollout.
Customizable and configurable
Customizable rules further reduce the time and effort required to calculate overtime and other variables. Configurable work types, payroll codes, project types, and shift patterns adapt to all potential workforce configurations.
Clear communication
In the event of time card issues, collaboration tools allow the payroll department to efficiently communicate directly to responsible personnel. Resolving time card issues at the source helps to minimize the time required for resolving discrepancies after payroll has been run.
An investment in your company
Shop Floor Insight pays for itself in as little as three months. By automating your shop floor data collection, you will increase data accuracy, reduce unnecessary overhead costs and improve the efficiency of your staff; helping to enable your staff to focus on value added tasks to drive business performance.
The Shop Floor insight ROI calculator will help you to estimate some key financial benefits of the solution:
Video Gallery
Production Scheduler
Barcoded Production Orders
Tracking Quality
Tracking Rework Time
Packed with All the Features You Need… and Then Some
Speed shop floor time collection while simultaneously reducing data entry errors
Shop Floor Insight utilizes barcodes on the shop floor to streamline system access and simplify the process of collecting time against operations on a production order.
Users will scan an ID badge equipped with a barcode that will log them into the system and depending on the configuration will display the open timecard or a dispatch list of production orders. Once logged in users simply scan the barcode on the production order to start working. Shop floor users can also capture nonproductive time such as machine downtime on the shop floor by scanning the appropriate barcode.
The use of barcoding simplifies the shop floor data collection process, ensuring the quality of the data while minimizing the overhead for the shop floor staff.
Manage loading more effectively with a visual production scheduler
Shop Floor Insight adds a graphical layer to the NAV production schedule enabling production managers and employees to view and manage loading more effectively.
With Shop Floor Insight, you’ll easily visualize exactly what work is scheduled at each workstation. The graphical interface enables employees to clock on, record output and perform all tasks you can normally do with the dispatch list.
The visual production schedule is more than a display. Users, with the appropriate permissions, can drag-and-drop an operation on a production order to a new work center and time. As work is rearranged, associated operations will automatically update to reflect a new production schedule.
Clicking on a specific production order operation will also display additional details.
Quickly and easily execute day-to-day tasks with ease
Shop Floor Insight provides tools that can easily import information from external document management systems if required, as well as extends capabilities that document valuable data for informed decision making. The full MES option enables users to view linked documents, record production consumption and output, enter quality measures, view and enter production comments and manage dispatch lists for job and production orders.
Scan or type to record information instead of losing mission-critical information written on paper, such as work instructions and record links, stock numbers at the point of use, lot and serial numbers that are going to be produced, how much has been completed at particular stages of production, how much has been scrapped, and what the scrap code is; which can be recorded right on the line if enabled.
The MES option provides flexible quality inspections associated with your work center that works with every component in NAV. Enable employees to view tests that need to be performed, and provide flexibility to record information in NAV or on the shop floor.
Users can create inspections against incoming receipts and outgoing shipments where fields and acceptable values can be defined. By determining your logic on how to respond if there is a failed test, users can assign test definitions with anything in the system. This will prompt the system to alert users if they try to start the next operation on a production order with a failed test.
Easily manage your quality assurance process to increase customer satisfaction
Customer satisfaction includes delivering products and services free of defects and shortcomings. Shop Floor Insight helps ensure you deliver what your customer expects by including a fully configurable quality module.
Shop Floor Insight helps reduce rework and returns by enabling you to track information that pertains to quality. Whether you need to collect information for audits, comply with 3rd party regulations, track batch information, check that shipments are prepared correctly or ensure parts are produced within spec, Shop Floor Insight makes it easy.
With Shop Floor Insight, you’re in control. When it comes to monitoring quality, the task can be assigned to an employee, asset or process. In addition to the quality information you choose to collect, pass/fail parameters can be configured to confirm acceptance or indicate a problem that needs to be resolved.
Improve visibility into neglected cost areas by collecting and analyzing rework time
Studies show that “finished” products don’t pass inspection 20% of the time and that rework is required. The cost of rework can be a considerable expense for a company and so there is an opportunity to improve profit margins if rework can be reduced.
The key to reducing rework is data. More specifically, what is the cause of the rework and exactly how much is the rework costing a company.
Shop Floor Insight enables users to find the root cause to any rework required as well, Shop Floor Insight tracks the hours dedicated to just rework.
Using built-in reports, companies can easily identify why rework is needed and create processes to reduce rework.
Accurately evaluate job progression and costing in real-time
Managers can monitor job and production order progression and costs in real-time at every stage of the manufacturing process. Shop Floor Insight reporting enables managers to review which employees completed specific tasks. Managers can now see how much time each person has put towards operational productivity helping to identify bottlenecks and employee utilization issues. By utilizing Insight Works’ Shop Floor Insight reporting tools, managers can make better-informed decisions related to staff utilization and scheduling.
Easily locate anomalies to reduce validation time and costs
Shop Floor Insight’s simple and efficient tools enable management to review open time cards for any potential issues prior to approval.
Shop Floor Insight will alert supervisors with visual cues if there are validation issues during the approval process, making the work of approving time cards quick and easy. Supervisors can use the approval interface to review all employee time details, adjust clock in/out times, adjust recorded time on activities, and send notes to payroll or other users.
Make tracking non-shop time and attendance simple
Shop Floor Insight supports time and attendance tracking for non-shop floor staff providing a consistent look and feel that NAV users will be comfortable with. Standard NAV functionality is available to users such as filtering, drop downs, lookups, data exports etc. Non-production time is logged in the same table as shop floor time providing a holistic view of labor costs for the organization.
Ensure accurate payroll processing by eliminating double entry
The time & attendance data collected by Shop Floor Insight can be easily exported for integration with any payroll provider. Payroll users can easily export the data to excel or a custom export can be developed for integration with specific payroll providers. Electronically transferring the payroll data helps to ensure the data is entered accurately into the Payroll system and reduces the overhead of double entry.
Adapt to all potential workforce configurations by enabling user capabilities with configurable payroll rules
Payroll rules in Shop Floor Insight are configured based on daily or weekly shift patterns. The module also includes the ability to configure rules for overtime and copies fully summarized data to the time journal to ensure there is no need to calculate overtime. Overall, Shop Floor Insight’s configurable payroll rules provide valuable data on how much labor companies are spending, how much downtime companies have, and why they are down.
Meet virtually any business requirement for payroll codes, project types and shift patterns
Shop Floor Insight offers configuration options to meet virtually any business requirement for payroll codes, project types and shift patterns. Pre-configured attributes are available and users have the ability to add additional ones as required.
Leveraging this flexibility, Shop Floor Insight can be tailored to companies with configuring project types, payroll codes and patterns, helping help companies meet the unique requirements of their business, as well as providing accurate and organized data.
Shop Floor Insight alerts users if there are validation issues such as “setup time was not entered” or “total hours on time card is less than expected,” highlighting all issues in red for easy visibility. Users have the ability to look at routing for the production orders, and see how much time has been put against the production order in the shop that has not yet been approved. This provides rounding rules that can be applied to shift patterns, as well as a record of historical data, warranty or quality issues, and even shows when the work was done and who it was done by.
Mitigate risks and enhance accountability with multi-level approvals of time
Shop Floor Insight enables management to review time collection data using a strong system of checks and balances. Using an easy-to-use interface, users can indicate reporting structures with the ability to configure as many reporting levels as required.
Using this feature, managers will only see time cards for staff that they manage and can approve time using a simple approval process. The approval process assists managers by highlighting data that needs to be reviewed prior to approval. When reporting structures change it is quick and easy to modify them within Shop Floor Insight.
Insight Works Time Collection Module enables management to review time collection data using a strong system of checks and balances. Using an easy-to-use interface, users can indicates who reports to who with the ability to customize as many reporting levels as required.
Using this feature, employees can filter time cards by who they manage using an easy approval process. The approval process assists employees by marking data that needs to be reviewed in red, showing issues per line. For example: If the project budget indicated that 100 hours would be worked in 8 hour increments per employee and there is a time entry for 5 hours, appropriate personnel have the ability to review data to determine why. Insight Works Time Collection Module also ensures that changing personnel responsible for time collection of specific employees is quick and easy in the event that job roles change.
Speed up adoption with an intuitive interface that looks and feels like a paper time card employees are used to
The shop floor user interface has been designed to be simple and intuitive, presenting the data in a format that users on the shop floor are used to and comfortable with.
Shop floor users record labor usage, output, scrap and completion against operations on a production orders or multiple production orders. Production orders can be selected from a dispatch list or by scanning a production order traveler report equipped with barcodes. Capturing labor time is very simple and depending on configuration can be manually entered or calculated based on scan times.
Supervisor capabilities are extended with the ability to manage set up time, capture set up time independent of run time, and deduct break times manually or by scanning a barcode.
Security of the shop floor interface has been designed to be simple but effective. Users scan their badge to log in, start working on a production order and log out. There is also a configurable timeout that can be setup which ensures that data is accurately captured for each user.
Improve shop floor efficiency with user profiles
Shop Floor Insight enables users to create user interface profiles for users, groups and even globally. A configurable user interface means Shop Floor Insight can easily be tailored specifically to your production environment to improve shop floor efficiency.
Streamline your process using color
By assigning colors to various components, users will easily configure Shop Floor Insight to provide better visibility when viewing time cards. For example, Shop Floor Insight can highlight time card tasks that are still open making it easy for production workers to identify tasks, or identify if an employee is clocking setup or run time.
Increase accuracy and security with facial recognition system login
Both users and administrators will appreciate the hands-free facial recognition feature built into Shop Floor Insight. Simply walk up to the workstation, look into the camera and you’re instantly logged in and presented with your assigned production orders.
Increased security
With facial recognition, misplaced or stolen ID badges can no longer be used to log into Shop Floor Insight. As well, people can’t be logging in on behalf of someone else. In the event you do allow ID badge scans, Shop Floor Insight will snap and store a photo of the person accessing the workstation.
Fast and accurate
With facial recognition, you get a verification method that is convenient, quick and accurate.
No contact
Fingerprint authentication doesn’t work well in a manufacturing environment where there is dirt, grime, and gloves. Facial recognition is a clean, reliable, and no-contact authentication method.
Enhance the quality and effectiveness of your safety program
Your safety program is a critical part of your business, and proper record keeping is crucial to keeping it compliant with regulatory agencies and industry groups. The Safety Logbook feature of Shop Floor Insight makes it simple. With Shop Floor Insight, you will improve shop safety by recording and publishing hazard assessments, logging and implementing corrective actions, and tracking employee certifications and training.
Ensure your safety records are always thorough and up-to-date. The Safety Logbook provides integrated record keeping for certifications, near misses, incidents, and all other HSE-related activities. Generate employee history reports, management dashboards, and comprehensive incident investigation reports.
With the Safety Logbook, you’ll promote safety best practices and improve the quality and effectiveness of your safety program.
- Enhance the quality and effectiveness of your safety program
- Improve shop safety by tracking corrective actions and hazard assessments
- Manage compliance with governmental regulations
- Track and analyze all safety-related incidents and activities
- Generate or print an employee’s entire HSE history, including certifications and incidents
- Properly plan for employee re-certification
Licensing: Subscription
Cost
Please contact your Microsoft Partner for pricing details.
AppSource Rating
Business Central/NAV Compatibility
Dynamics NAV 2013
Dynamics NAV 2015
Dynamics NAV 2016
Dynamics NAV 2017
Dynamics NAV 2018
Dynamics 365 Business Central On-Premise
Dynamics 365 Business Central Cloud
Typical User
Shippers, Receivers, Inventory Managers, Warehouse Personnel, Material Handlers, and others working in the warehouse.
Release Date
June 2010: Actively being maintained and supported with updates.
Prerequisites
Barcode scanner. View available options.
Related Apps
Integration
We recommend having your Microsoft Partner install and configure the app.
Documentation
Well documented on the Insight Works’ Knowledge Base. View the documentation here.
Support
The app is supported via the Insight Works’ Knowledge Base and Forum. For one-on-one support, Insight Works support plans are available or you can contact your Microsoft Partner.
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