One of my apps is a Work In Progress that tracks the item through the manufacturing process.

The first stage prints out a barcode with the customer id and a production control #. This automatically generates a time/date stamp that the process has begun. Each employee also has a ID with barcode that is also scanned.

Each department (up to 25) has a workstation with a wedge scanner. Each department also has laminated barcode labels that identifies the department. The first scan in each department is the date/time IN; the second is date/time OUT.

All workstations are connected to the central work in progress (WIP) table on the server through an intermediate collection table. Sometimes users will double/triple scan so the collection table is used to check for scanning discrepancies before the scan is transferred to WIP table.

If you already have departmental workstations, I believe wedge scanners would be cost effective. If you don't, the portable readers would probably be lower priced.

The nice thing about the workstation/wedge is it's pretty much real time and management always knows where everything is at in the production process.

>Hi Everyone,
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>For a manufacturer or metal parts, I need to register job information for each employee.
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>In more detail I require the job number the employee id number, the machine/procedure number the time started, the time completed, and the total quantity of items produced/completed, for every employee for every job on the production floor. There are almost 45 employees at three different sites, for the same manufacturer.
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>The job's come from a purchase order entry module.
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>I am considering barcode scanning. Does anyone have a cost effective idea on how to gather all this information, preferably using barcodes on employee id badges, withour adding to many computers to the production floor?
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>Thanks in advance!