Paperless Shop Floor
Reasons to Upgrade Your Shop Floor to Paperless Manufacturing
Why is Going Paperless Important?
When people hear the term “paperless,” they typically associate the elimination of this office resource as an act that helps the environment. And while this is true, adopting a paperless manufacturing solution can do so much more. In addition to promoting a more sustainable business, going paperless can decrease operating costs, enhance productivity and help a shop floor work smarter (and not necessarily harder).
Reasons to Upgrade Your Shop Floor to Paperless Manufacturing
Reduce Machine Down Time & Improve Scheduling
Improve Lead Times & Win More Jobs
Lower the Cost of Quality Control
Reduce Paper and Office Supply Costs
Enhance Security and Compliance
Track Progress and Performance More Accurately & Effectively
Keep More Complete and Accurate Records
Improve Communication and Encourage Better Teamwork
Train New Employees Faster & Acclimate Existing Employees To New Departments More Effectively
Get Jobs Into Production Faster
Reduce Set-Up Times By Calibrating Machines Faster
Reduce Scrap Parts & Improve Profitability
Improve Shop-Wide Accountability
Become More Eco-Friendly and Improve Public Image
Pinpoint Manufacturing Bottlenecks Faster
Reduce Tribal Knowledge
Use your Paperless System as a Sales Tool
5 Benefits of Going Paperless with Digital Shop Routers:
The information on a digital router is always up to date.
When the customer order is changed with a new quantity, delivery date, drawing revision, the router, schedule, etc. are instantly and automatically changed
Workers ONLY have access to the latest information when they view it on a device.
Digital routers speed up the process.
Everyone who needs to know about something they need to do on a job can be instantly notified when a job is created.
They can parallel process their part of things and get it done much faster than with paper.
Hot jobs can’t get stuck at the bottom of a pile. Instead, they are filtered and prioritized on digital dashboards and lists which are always up to date.
The speed of the workflow and risk of jobs getting forgotten is vastly improved.
A digital traveler can’t get lost.
An identifying job tag should be attached or affixed to the material, parts, and WIP so that it can’t easily be separated from the parts by a gust of wind or an honest mistake of setting a paper traveler in the wrong spot.
If tags get damaged they can be recreated easily.
It’s easy to split a job with a digital router.
Just make a new tag or print a new label. All the other corresponding work instructions and inspection reports are always online for anyone to find.
Everything is in one place.
There are not multiple different places to look for things with potentially conflicting information.
Obstacles:
The biggest obstacle to going paperless is the fear of change. It’s human nature to resist change, especially when it’s such a dramatic change. People are uncertain about how it will work, and how their job will change. We’ve seen that time and time again when employees are first introduced to a paperless environment. Almost without fail, the clear and obvious benefits start to reveal themselves quickly and people realize how much they’ve suffered from the waste they didn’t realize for so many years.
The second biggest obstacle to going paperless is the actual technology used to make the transition. Until recently there hasn’t been a practical way to easily manage the data needed to run a dynamic job shop environment, with less labor investment, without paper.
How ProShop Can Help!
With ProShop ERP, we’ve been running paperless and highly effective job shops for over 20 years. We have helped hundreds of other manufacturing companies become more efficient, save cost, save trees, take their company through a true digital transformation, and reach the pinnacle of going paperless. We’d encourage you to watch the accompanying video and reach out to us if this sounds like an interesting consideration for your shop.
