MINING FOR DATA GOLD

By Mark Porter

Job Costing - whether done via time sheets or shop floor data collection is the process of tracking every minute of every day of each machine and employee. This not only allows us to get accurate costing of how much each job actually cost us to produce but also allows us to analyze all aspects of our operations.

How much of employee John's Smith time last quarter was chargeable(rebilled) and how much was non chargeable. How many hours did we spend repairing that old Kluge press last year. Collecting shop floor data allows you to easily find this information out.

This type of information can allow you to control your labor costs and make more informed decisions regarding the machines in your company 

We can extend this further if we start to track characteristics of jobs. For example what was the average running speed on 28x40 sheets of 10pt coated stock 2 up on the Bobst press.

How much time did we spend waiting for Customer ABC to do press oks.

This type of information can help with providing more accurate estimates. This is very important because if we are quoting a job at 3000 per hour when we are only achieving 2500 on the shop floor we are losing money as soon as we get the order. Conversely if we quote at 2500 per hour and are actually achieving 3000 on the shop floor we are losing jobs we could be producing profitably.

You do not have to be limited by the analysis our software allows you to do. All this data can be sent to excel where you can sort and analyze the data in ways that answer questions that are specific to your company.

There is a wealth of information happening in your plant every day. You simply need to start collecting it and analyzing it to help you improve productivity and profitability