Boosting Manufacturing Yield and Efficiency with Frontline Workflow Automation

For example, how much time does it take your logistics or warehouse team to receive, track, put-away and then later retrieve and pick inventory or materials for your production builds?

How much time is lost or how many production delays or issues occur if you don’t have an accurate count of your inventory, can’t locate what’s needed, or can’t get it to the line on time?

What about work-in-process tracking? Are your teams blind to some of your active builds or production output, and do they spend time sending emails, making calls, or physically tracking down a build or production output and finished goods?

And how much time is wasted on manual data entry, lingering paper-based processes, or inefficient workflows that should ideally be more automated, digitized, and simplified.

In virtually every manufacturing plant, there are time drains, inefficiencies, slowdowns, manual processes, and a lack of visibility that impact production, performance, and cost every day. But it’s so widespread across so many areas, tasks, and processes that it can be difficult to truly quantify it and get the full sense of it across the operation.

This is why our team at DCM often works with companies to help them understand and identify their biggest productivity and efficiency issues, understand where they could start automating and improving more of their processes, and how to start in specific areas and start building out a better foundation with a smart and cost-effective use of frontline technologies.

As our strategic partner in delivering technology recommendations and solutions, we also work with Zebra Technologies, a global leader in mobile computing, barcoding, RFID, and automation solutions, to help us assess each company’s situation and identify the best solutions that can unlock its true potential.

Identifying the Best Opportunities for Practical Frontline Process Improvement

The good news with automating and streamlining frontline, manufacturing-related processes is that your own plant’s issues are typically the same or very similar issues that thousands of other companies have faced. There are common similarities in the transactions, tasks, and workflows that you might need to automate, simplify, error-proof, and make more efficient. And that means that solutions to these issues have already been developed, and experts with experience across different manufacturing operations can quickly ask key questions, perform assessments, and work with your team to uncover the areas where you should focus first.

The one common denominator, though, is trying to automate and digitize processes and tracking as much as possible, using mobile computing, data capture, tracking technologies, and simple mobile apps or mobile versions of your ERP or WMS, to help your workers get more done in less time, with less manual effort.

Examples of Frontline Automation Possibilities

Automated Text/Code Capture And Dimensioning

As a quick example, if your warehouse or shipping team is dealing with paperwork that doesn’t always have barcodes to scan and requires manual data re-entry in your mobile apps or warehouse or shipping system, you can implement optical character recognition (OCR) using Zebra mobile devices to automatically read and parse text or codes of virtually any kind. Using your Zebra device’s built-in scanner, you can capture and digitize that information in seconds, even across multiple fields, add it to your mobile warehouse transactions, and transmit it to your WMS or other systems without any manual data entry.

Automated Work-In-Process Tracking And Locating

Similarly, if you’re struggling with a lack of visibility into work-in-process across multiple production stages and build phases, you can use Zebra RFID tags and readers to track the identity, status, and location of your builds, assemblies, subassemblies, or even individual parts. Each tag can be read wirelessly and automatically as it arrives at each workstation or production area, and its related information, status, and location can be updated and transmitted to your business systems automatically, as everything moves through your operations.

Your managers or production teams can quickly search for those builds and find their latest status without having to make a phone call, send an email, or physically track them down. You can even use simple RFID software and RFID tags and readers to automatically trigger text alerts, emails, or other notifications that let your teams know when each build reaches a specific stage or becomes finished goods and is ready for inventory or shipping.

Task Automation And Efficiency Through Wearable Technologies

Wearable technologies, such as Zebra wrist-worn mobile computers, finger-worn barcode scanners, and headsets can also help your teams manage and pick inventory or pack and verify shipments with hands-free efficiency. They can actually interact with your WMS or other business systems using audio prompts from your system and verbal commands that can be converted into automated data entry, mobile transaction steps, or mobile app interactions—all using software that runs on your mobile devices and integrates with your ERP, WMS or other enterprise applications.

Takeaways, Key Considerations and Possible Next Steps

These are just a few examples of how frontline mobile technologies and automation can digitally transform plant efficiency and productivity—starting at the human task level but ultimately impacting your overall operations. As your teams save seconds and minutes with every task and transaction and gain better real-time visibility into everything that’s happening, they can all work more efficiently and plan, stage, and execute production and related workflows with better throughput, productivity, and cost savings. 

This is why 92% of manufacturers say that this kind of digital transformation and automation is a strategic priority for their organization, and 90% say that current and projected market conditions are accelerating that priority.

At DCM, our team helps companies execute that strategic priority by identifying their best opportunities to implementing highly effective and relatively affordable technologies that can make it happen. To learn more about the possibilities and start exploring your best opportunities to improve, based on your own needs and challenges as well as insights from other, leading, real-world manufacturers, contact us now to get started.

We’d be glad to set up a conversation to learn more about your operations and start taking the right steps toward improved productivity, efficiency, and cost savings.