JobTraQ® Case Study: Manufacturing

Production

Manufacturing companies struggle with complex production schedules and finite scheduling interactions. It's impossible to manage these workloads with paper because it's too hard to build summary views, to sort the data, or to get a handle on priorities. Being able to queue production tasks presents tremendous value for manufacturers.

Purchasing

Purchasing managers use JobTraQ® to allow internal clients to make requests via JobTraQ®'s customizable input forms. This allows purchasing managers to:

• Get notified right away when new requests are entered
• Queue the requests for review, approval, prioritization and assignment (to purchasing agents or suppliers)
• To automatically update requestors on status or supply issues, etc.
• To quickly use JobTraQ®'s online, searchable database to record and review vendor performance and historical pricing, etc.
• To facilitate rapid turnover between employees and vendors
• To pre-schedule the assignment of recurring supply orders.

The amount of time saved, from the reduction of paperwork, often allows purchasing managers to return to core mission items such as cost management and alternative source exploration.

Maintenance

Another issue that troubles many manufacturers, and is easily solved with JobTraQ® is CNC trouble ticketing, tracking, and analysis as well as regular maintenance scheduling and metrics. Manufacturers have identified JobTraQ® as a key tool for enhancing management view into key operational, repair and maintenance data. Expensive CNC machines shouldn't sit idle, but often do needlessly because maintenance trends are not spotted in time to order appropriate spare parts. Multi-shift operations also struggle with shift transitions where repair work is needlessly repeated, or where repair or maintenance needs are not even communicated across shifts. JobTraQ® provides a crisp and simple interface for operators to report trouble and for production managers to spot issues and make sure maintenance teams are "on the job". Data extraction and analysis can then provide invaluable insight into patterns, such as CNC machines that continue to break in the same manner, allowing problem determination to take place before critical production days are lost due to major system failure. Better communications between operators and maintenance staff, between maintenance staff and managers, better turnover between shifts and better visibility of the maintenance workload and finally the ability to create automated maintenance schedules are just a few of the ways that JobTraQ® provides significant value to the manufacturing industry. Being able to pre-build maintenance schedules into JobTraQ® insures CNC machines are getting the maintenance they need to comply with warranty requirements and to achieve maximum uptime. You just can't count on human memory to keep it up. Maintenance staff that get "slammed" with repair issues, often bypass regular maintenance and critical cycles are missed. Maximize your investment with JobTraQ®.

Research and Development

R&D groups will especially enjoy the power and flexibility of JobTraQ®. Managing complex product development cycles from genesis through to production and allowing real-time collaboration between engineers and product/project managers is one of JobTraQ®'s core strengths. Product testers and project managers use JobTraQ® to enter and track the progress of requirements, issues, and enhancement requests. Engineers are able to focus on designing good products, letting JobTraQ® keep them on target and focused on the priorities of project managers. Once issues are reported as being resolved, managers and testers are instantly notified allowing them to verify the quality and relevancy of solutions/changes and shorten the cycle for re-testing and feedback or release. When testers enter new issues and assign them to the responsible engineers, they are instantly notified of a newly discovered issue allowing them to ask questions right away and make notes (right in the JobTraQ® ticket) while the reported defect is fresh in a testers mind. Later when the engineer is able to address the issue, he or she can update the ticket as work progresses, increasing communications and reducing the need for time consuming manual status reports.

Most product-based, as well as many custom manufacturing firms, allow their key customers to access the client interface of JobTraQ® directly. Providing this level of real-time accountability and process visibility to clients, especially as part of custom development projects, is a serious differentiation in today's competitive marketplace. Manufacturing companies find that customers are reassured that, once entered into JobTraQ®, issues are being addressed and as a result product support costs and time spent providing status updates are reduced. By utilizing the private areas of JobTraQ® tickets, engineers and managers can still enter sensitive data into JobTraQ® tickets that should not be accessed by customers. This allows R&D teams to achieve full use of the JobTraQ® system as an internal tool while providing the appearance of a completely open and externally visible process management system.

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