Improve material management with digital workflows

Reducing material levels always requires to have an accurate view of material levels at each station and warehouse. The most straightforward solution would be to implement a material tracking system using tracking technology such as UWB or RFID.

This is a costly and complex solution that requires a lengthy infrastructure development process. WORKERBASE implicitly tracks material from human interactions. This gives you station level accuracy of your material’s location without the need to implement any dedicated tracking system.

When connected frontline workers are performing their work, the material being used is tracked by the WORKERBASE system. This includes regular material usage as well as any out of the ordinary incidents like recording broken, dirty or missing material.

Material levels are constantly updated when material is going in or going out of a station. Coupled with the data from the actual production/assembly process, the WORKERBASE system creates a forecast as to how long material will still last at a station and triggers the replenishment process at exactly the right time to reduce the material level at each station as well as optimizing the replenishment process.

When replenishment orders are arriving equipped with a clear (system calculated) deadline for delivery, the replenishment process can be streamlined to suit the station’s cycle times. This allows to do replenishment runs at dynamic intervals instead of running them at a fixed schedule. Therefore tugger trains run at optimal capacity instead of going with only low utilization because the order deadlines were missed. Once replenishment cycles are adapting to real-time demand, it enables the reduction of buffer levels. The WORKERBASE system provides an overview of orders created by the staff and each worker can track the status of their deliveries. This can be extended onto external suppliers providing total clarity of order status even if material is delivered from outside the factory.

Easily prevent double orders from workers in different shifts by providing clarity on the order status, especially if the replenishment process takes longer than expected. The WORKERBASE system can replace classic on-demand ordering processes and place orders automatically depending on the progress of the work and recorded defects. This means the frontline staff never has to worry about missing material or ordering anymore and material levels are kept as low as possible.

Frontline workers are using the WORKERBASE system to report defects or missing material during their work processes and you will be able to easily identify the most common problems. Individual stations may be dealing with more incidents than others and identifying the root causes only takes a few minutes with the WORKERBASE analytics functions.