Organization of jobs

[HulkSmash]

We are been growing at an excessive rate over the past 2 years. I've always struggled in finding ways to keep my installers and production guys organized. They have a hard time following ways to stay organized... Last year we got a bunch of tablets, installed a software and have been using that since. Now they're telling me they prefer a paper system over digital for tracking jobs..and what not. Curious what everyone has been doing to organize jobs when they come in until to printed to installed.. to picked up.


thanks,

 

[Jester1167]

I'm know expert, but at some point, whether it's size or volume, you have to hire a production manager whose only job is to track and schedule production and installation.

It's an added cost but a lifer saver when your operating at max capacity or when snafu's happen. A good production mgr. should offset their cost with increased productivity and less mistakes. They should have the ability to implement procedures and enforce them. I'm not talking about adding a whole bunch of paperwork. The production manager should maintain the software for you and deliver job packets and information to the workers as needed. They should also be able to shift manpower (and hopefully predict requirements), hire and fire as needed, attend daily meetings keeping you up to date, all while leaving the workers free to work instead of dealing with software or paperwork.

I don't know how big you are but I'm getting the impression your on the edge.

 

[HulkSmash]

I'm know expert, but at some point, whether it's size or volume, you have to hire a production manager whose only job is to track and schedule production and installation.

It's an added cost but a lifer saver when your operating at max capacity or when snafu's happen. A good production mgr. should offset their cost with increased productivity and less mistakes. They should have the ability to implement procedures and enforce them. I'm not talking about adding a whole bunch of paperwork. The production manager should maintain the software for you and deliver job packets and information to the workers as needed. They should also be able to shift manpower (and hopefully predict requirements), hire and fire as needed, attend daily meetings keeping you up to date, all while leaving the workers free to work instead of dealing with software or paperwork.

I don't know how big you are but I'm getting the impression your on the edge.

We have a production manager. Our guys still need to see a visual layout of work that needs to be done. Just looking for an effective system.

 

[Gino]

How about a big blackboard or a white erasable board ??

Someone takes responsibility for it's upkeep each and every day. If your shop is too large for one location, I'm sure you could put this on some kinda inner-shop scrolling monitor and ya just hafta toggle in what you wanna/need to see.

 

[parrott]

100% what Jester said. We have production schedules that are updated and distributed daily. Nothing fancy, but it has deadlines for each department that they go by.

 

[Jester1167]

In that case, I personal find paper layouts better for installations.

I use tape or magnets to keep them near me and always visible and scribble notes and measurements for future reference (other side, more vehicles). After the job I put them in an installation binder for future reference.

I do keep a tablet with me so I can refer to images of prior installs and pdfs occasionally. The tablet allows me to zoom in and out, but I use the printed version 95% of the time.

 

[rjssigns]

This comes from my days in custom fabrication. Still applies.

You had the office and shop. Job tickets were generated in the office. Pull sheets were the responsibility of the office. Job blueprints were generated there also.

Once the office did their part the full packets were put in slots on a crew board in their respective areas.

By the time the "packets" hit the floor necessary parts had been ordered or fabricated and were ready to be pulled from inventory. Other bits and pieces were loaded onto custom carts.

Pulling parts fell to the team lead. Something missing or screwed up the supervisor was notified.

Within these packets were sign off areas. If you pulled parts from stock or a WIP(work in progress) that was signed for also.

WIP Stores could be a staging point for completed graphic/wrap packages. WIP stores responsibility was to ensure that everything they were supposed to have was actually accounted for. If not the job couldn't be released.

As you completed work according to the SOE's(sequence of events) you had to initial and date.

Traceability, accountability, and owning what you did were the rule.

You may want to look at an expediter too. They were the shop guys that went to all the jobs putting out fires and bird dogging whatever. One expediter was worth twice what they paid them. It completely stops people from wandering around looking for bits and pieces instead of doing their job.

There were also employees involved in "delivering the mail". They would deliver and stage whatever needed delivering and staging to its respective area. This usually happened on second or third shifts.

Another thing you might want to look at is Six Sigma principles.(there is good and bad with Six Sigma and I don't wish to start a debate)

Following some of their guidelines will allow you to set up work cells for very specific functions. It will virtually eliminate the time wasted looking for tools. You will be able to streamline certain processes based on specialization.

This book is an interesting read: “The Goal: A process of ongoing improvement,” by Eliyahu Goldratt

If you read this you will be looking for "Herbie's" in your shop.

 

[CanuckSigns]

about 5 months ago we implemented a card system, every job gets a card filled out with basic info (customer, job #, job description, due date) the card travels through the different stages (quote, design/proof, order materials, production, installation, invoice) there is a paper work order that has all the details of the job that go in a bin under the job stages on the board, when the card moves, the work order moves.

So far it has worked well, you can organize the cards on the board in order of importance, so employees don't just grab jobs they "like" to do. it's the employees job to move the card through to the next step when they are done with their portion of the job.

I looked into a computer based system, and in the end, we chose a paper based system as well, it allows me to easily sketch a drawing or write little notes on the jobs that I feel wouldn't get done if I had to type everything into the computer. Plus some of our owners/employees are not that computer savvy, so I would be playing "computer guru" alot.

 

[StarSign]

SIGNVOX and a production manager!

 

[CanuckSigns]

SIGNVOX and a production manager!

I think that's his current setup

 

[PushProductions]

We use Shop works for everything at our shop. We do tons of productions of all kinds. Ours is an online system but we also have paperwork. Pretty much the paper work is used for the works to have in hand and they scan it into the system to tell the system what stage of production the job is in. It works great for us!

 

[HDvinyl]

I'm know expert

Do you know how funny that is?

 

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