Issue link: https://docs.hic.us/i/668488
The Solution In addition to networking the embroidery ma- chines, two custom applications were required: a networking application to pull designs from a file server, and a custom reporting application to produce specific reports about machine and operator production. Networked machines were organized into pods of up to four machines, with one operator required for each pod. Designs were sent to a pod and remained in a queue until loaded onto one of the machines. The networking appli- cation supported barcode scanners so that operators could quickly retrieve designs from a centralized database, reducing the error rate. Machine data was then collected and stored in a central database. Operators logged in or out of a job with a unique operator identifier, making it possible to produce custom reports with statistics for a pod of machines, a single machine, or a specific operator for any date/ time range requested. Benefits Using the data collected, the company imple- mented an operator incentive program. This program was used to motivate machine oper- ators to meet daily production targets in order to receive various bonus incentives. It also al- lowed the company to reward those operators who consistently exceeded expectations and to note those who continuously underperformed. The elimination of disks also reduced the amount of production errors, while significantly speeding up the file retrieval process at the same time. No longer were disks being lost or misplaced, ensuring that all designs were available to any machine operator at all times. Each operator is now able to manage up to 4 embroidery machines at once, reducing the number of laborers required to complete the same number of jobs or more. Future Possibilities With the addition of networking and barcode scan- ning, the company is perfectly positioned to fully automate their production process by adding auto- matic generation of personalization files. The au- tomation system could utilize order information to automatically generate the embroidery file using the company's own rules for embroidery creation. The auto-generated design could then be queued to a pod, awaiting an operator to scan the barcode and download to the machine. By implementing Pulse's strategic changes to their production processes, the client increased the performance and efficiency of their machines and operators.