The Paperless Factory® System is designed to be implemented progressively, on a modular basis, to meet specific end user functional requirements.

The Tracking Module

The central function of the Paperless Factory® System is performed by the Tracking module. This module defines the production route and controls the progress of items through the production process, and it provides visibility of work in progress. Finished product histories, including details about parts consumed in assemblies, are built by the system and can be archived for quality control, for meeting manufacturing standards, or for fulfilling statutory or regulatory requirements.

The Paperless Factory® System controls the manufacturing process by defining a routing along which a work piece travels through the plant. The routing is the logical sequence of positions or operations where some data must be provided or collected. The data transaction at a routing position may be as simple as recording that the item has reached the location. The transaction may be more complex, such as collection of process data, displaying operator instructions or drawings or both, downloading instructions to a programmable controller, or re-routing an item to a different work location.

The control of instructions to be displayed by an operator or loaded into a machine is vitally important where different engineering change revision levels may be active concurrently. The Paperless Factory® System ensures the correction version is provided on-line.

Each type of part or subassembly that is manufactured in the plant will have its own routing. Because different routings can use the same routing positions, each position may have several routing records associated with it -- one for each of the different parts processed at that position. Once a routing has been defined for a type of part, individual work pieces or batches of work pieces can be tracked along the route using a unique tracking code.

Within the Tracking module, the routings are created using a series of maintenance transactions. These transactions are programs that allow the necessary data records, which define the transactions that can be carried out, to be created for each routing position.

The routing structure allows alternative paths, including loops and off-line inspections. A part can be taken out of the production flow for quality control purposes and sent back to be re-worked if necessary. The complexity of the shop floor process is within the user's control. The Routing Control Maintenance and Routing Duplication transactions allow the shop floor processes to be configured so that the operator is not faced with a confusing display of options.

Different routings can be created for engineering change versions of a part and each part can have several routings. These capabilities support normal production, customer returns and prototype production.

Parts can be tracked individually, in batches, or by work order. Tracked parts can be built into other tracked parts and the relationship maintained to provide traceability, for example. A part can change its part number during the process when it is merged with other parts to become a subassembly and then is tracked along the route for the new part number.

The Tracking module provides a number of on-line inquiries to show users the status of production by, for example, part, routing position, or work order. Data collected during the manufacturing process can be retrieved to show a full process history for each tracked item.

The Material Control Module

As work is performed in a factory, material may be consumed. At any routing position (or operation position), a bill of materials can be defined for a workpiece. The Material Control module maintains shop floor stock "bins" for the bill of material components. The module monitors their use and triggers replenishment requests to the appropriate stores when the level in the bin reaches the predetermined minimum. This allows the timely replenishment of consumables on the shop floor without having the operator leave the work place. Because the replenishment is based on the demand pull principle of just-in-time material management, the overhead of predicting and rescheduling shop floor material levels is reduced greatly.

The Paperless Factory® System provides control over which routing positions require monitoring, the stock levels, and the stores from which the replenishment quantities should be supplied. The Material Control module displays or prints a picking request at the appropriate store location (predetermined by the user, or established real time). If the required quantity cannot be supplied, the system generates (automatically) a back-order for the stock. Each picking request has associated with it a unique number such that the system can track the request.

The consumption of components from a shop floor stock location at a routing position results in inventory adjustments for the parts consumed. The Paperless Factory® System provides a variety of inventory adjustment process types to allow for consumption of tracked and non-tracked items with a bill of materials. These processes range from "no adjustment" to adjusting inventory levels in the stock location the components were pulled from and adding the resulting product to a stock location.

At any time, the stock levels on the shop floor can be viewed electronically. The minimum and maximum bin quantities can be checked, any outstanding requests for replenishment can be reviewed, and material shortages can be located in the system. If required, "manual" replenishment requests can be entered in the system by an operator.

The Time Module

The Time module provides time and attendance and labor reporting. The main components are:

1. Clock in and out
2. Attendance variation
3. Labor reporting against direct and indirect work
4. Skills control

The Time module provides visibility of who is in or out of the facility, planned and unplanned absences, and skill levels so that personnel can be reassigned as quickly as possible to the shop-floor processes. The Time module also records labor activity against jobs for costing purposes.

Each employee who clocks in or reports labor through the system is identified by a number which can be held on a bar-coded badge. Badges can be printed by the system. Each employee is associated with a department, a shift, and a shift rotation.

When the employee's attendance varies from the normal pattern, for example, holidays, sickness, authorized or unauthorized absence, switching shifts, etc., a supervisor can report this to the Time module. In this way, inquiries about labor availability can be made.

The Time module also provides control over who is qualified to carry out specific tasks. A skills profile can be set for any activity and each employee has a qualifications profile. If a task has a skills profile, the employee who carries out the task must have the appropriate qualifications. This functionality helps a manufacturer comply with statutory safety requirements and quality standards.

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