Work Dispatch · Reporting & Labour Time

Production Labour-Time Acquisition, Dispatch and Reporting

Business situation

Many parts require skilled operators to machine them using production equipment. Pay may depend on skills and machining time. Time statistics also support production scheduling and process improvement. In the situation described, workers record time manually and designated staff organize and enter it into a system.

1. Inaccurate records. Self-recording may not reflect the time actually spent by a particular worker on a product. Forgotten entries may be reconstructed later from memory.
2. Delayed information. Records are generally handed over after the shift, then organized and entered. Even the best case may involve a one-day delay; delays can extend to several days, preventing real-time visibility of part processing.
3. Heavy administrative workload. Large volumes of handwritten records require substantial sorting and data entry before the company can use them.

1. User requirements

The proposed system replaces manual recording with simple, reliable barcode-based shop-floor acquisition and feeds collected information to ERP.

1. Chinese and English interfaces.
2. Barcode-assisted acquisition to simplify time registration.
3. Two label types: employee-number labels identifying operators, and work-order labels containing Date, Week, project number (Com.No), ID number (ID.No), quantity (Qty.), process code, estimated work time, completion percentage (Status%), work time in minutes (Work time/min), and equipment code (Plant code).
4. In this SAP Business One integration scenario, a dispatcher enters work-order details, stores them and prints barcode labels, providing shop-floor work-order creation alongside the existing ERP installation.
5. A supervisor must check acquired records before they enter the main database as official time records.
6. Handle interruptions by retaining elapsed time and permitting resumption. For short operations, initially described as 5–10 minutes per part, related parts can share one order and time can be averaged after completion.
7. Fine-grained user permissions.
8. Generate and export Excel reports.
9. Search using the individual time-record fields as indexes.
10. Supervisors can score daily employee performance and add comments.
11. Add fields later or modify existing fields to meet business needs.
12. Send shop-floor time data to SAP Business One in the specified format, in real time or batches, for statistics and analysis.
13. Deploy 4–5 barcode-acquisition stations, each with scanner, industrial computer and acquisition software.
14. Resolve interfaces for data exchange with ERP.

Warehouse material receipts/issues and project-based material traceability form a separate integration extension.

2. System proposal

2.1 Requirements analysis

The objective is more accurate, timely and convenient time recording through barcode acquisition. Records are based on employee numbers and work orders. Order data include Work Order No., Date, Week, Com.No, ID.No, Qty., Process code, estimated work time, Status%, Work time/min and Plant code. Employee and work-order identifiers are printed as barcodes.

Work-order labels are created by entering the relevant data, storing them in the database and printing them. To begin work, scan an employee number and then the project/work-order identifier. The system validates them, starts timing if valid, and reports an error if invalid. Completion or interruption is registered with the employee identifier and the applicable completion/interruption barcode.

When switching tasks, the previous order's timer can pause while the new one starts; returning resumes the previous timer. For multi-project, multi-product orders with short operations of 2–10 minutes in this design, total time can be distributed equally.

Include permissions, supervisor review and scoring before official posting, field-based enquiries, Excel export and configurable ancillary fields. The proposal again specifies 4–5 acquisition stations. ERP integration requires discussion with the customer's SAP consultant.

2.2 Overall design

Scanning employee and work-order numbers is the core. Networked stations distributed through the workshop share information and transmit records. A database holds reference data and time records for reporting, review, analysis and export.

• Employee/work-order label printing: print identifiers and order information. In this integration scenario, work orders are entered through the shop-floor system alongside SAP.
• User permissions: create users, assign rights and delete users.
• Enquiry/export: classify and search recorded time and export Excel reports.
• Shop-floor recording: acquire time in real time.
• Supervisor review/scoring: verify and evaluate records.
• Database maintenance: administrators add or modify time information and field definitions.

2.3 Detailed design

A C/S design supports convenient real-time shop-floor acquisition. Data reside in a SQL Server database, accessed by shop-floor PCs and order/reporting clients. Store shop-floor time, work orders, users and time-field definitions.

a. Employee-number and work-order printing

Print employee-number labels for scanning. Users enter all required order data, confirm them, save them and print the label. Confirmed orders cannot be changed without administrator authorization. One order can contain multiple projects and parts, and must contain order number, project number(s), part number(s), quantities, process code, estimated time, equipment code, date and week. Only the work-order number needs a barcode on that label. Damaged labels can be reprinted.

b. User permissions

User information includes code/employee number, name, department, operating skills and permissions.

c. Maintenance

Maintain time-field definitions and database-connection settings. Connection configuration is required on each computer and can be changed only by administrators. To accommodate future management changes, a definition table describes time fields. The core work-order number, project number, part number and work-time fields cannot be altered; other field definitions can be added, removed or changed. Processing uses the definition table for these additional fields.

d. Shop-floor acquisition

Employees register the start, completion or pause of orders. The system calculates, queries and summarizes time. Scan the employee number and then the order number: a paused order resumes; otherwise a new timer starts. Invalid employee or order numbers produce an error. Scanning an order can complete the previously registered order; starting a new order automatically pauses the previous order.

e. Review and scoring

Supervisors check temporary records for correctness and validity, add scores and comments, then transfer approved records to the main time table as official enterprise data. Supervisors cannot subsequently modify posted records.

f. Enquiries and export

Filter and sort by any field or combination and export results to Excel. Categorized statistical analysis is handled by the customer’s ERP.

2.4 Database design

The database design supports Microsoft SQL Server 2000 or later, or MSDE 2000 for smaller installations.

1. User_Info: user identifiers, names, skills, departments and permissions for authorization and operator identification.
2. Process_Code: workshop process codes and descriptions for order preparation.
3. Work orders: order number, date, week, project and part identifiers, quantity, process code, estimated time, completion percentage and Plant code. Multiple projects/parts and quantities can belong to one order, so WorkOrder and WC_Info tables are related by order number.
4. Temporary time: unapproved records transferred to official records after supervisor confirmation.
5. Official time: approved temporary data plus supervisor scores, comments and supplementary information.
6. Time-field maintenance: supplementary user-defined fields support notes, input and enquiries within the predefined processing logic.

2.5 Data interfaces

Exchange data with the company's ERP, including integration options for Kingdee, Yonyou and Digiwin software.