If your small business is ready to start manufacturing, you might think you’ll need all the help you can get. Inefficiencies in manufacturing cost businesses thousands every year. As you’re just getting started, you need to make sure your processes are as lean as possible. You need them to be performing optimally to ensure efficiency of time and cost. Most importantly, you need to have effective systems in place to monitor quality, deliveries, and orders. What you need are a series of useful apps, so you have control in the palm of your hand.
Many manufacturing companies find life is easier when they commission a bespoke app that is tailored to their business needs. That’s fine if you have the time and money to develop, trial and test the technology. As a small business, you probably don’t have that luxury. Instead, you need apps that are ready to go and ready to save your business time and money.
To ensure your processes are efficient, you might look at something like the Food Safety HACCP Basic Compliance Checklist app. Cutting corners must never risk safety. Are your belt conveyor systems operating well or are you ready to install fresh ones? Can the staff working the production line improve the speed of production by adopting new methods? Using compliance checklist apps helps everyone stay on top of safety as you’re refining your manufacturing processes.
Another mobile form app that might be handy is the HACCP: Receiving Deliveries (Sample SOP). This can help you stay on top of goods in and out as well as the invoices that may come with it. Tracking apps are handy, provided they can be integrated with your own spreadsheet systems. Consider this if you’re planning on developing your own in-house app.
The American Manufacturing app provides easy access to the latest articles on manufacturing innovations. This can be quite handy if you’re new to this line of business or you simply want to stay on top of best practice. You might use it as a reference guide, or a way to find out more about your own processes.
Developers like StaySafe offer GPS tracking apps to help you monitor personnel. Lone workers, in particular, can feel safer. You might find this handy for your sales teams or workers that have to travel outside of your workplace building. Smartphone tracking apps are also quite handy for this purpose. You may have to check your local privacy and HR laws if you want to implement trackers like this for your workforce.
Beyond these apps, mobile office apps from Google or Microsoft can be incredibly useful on the factory floor. Databases and spreadsheets with collaboration permissions can help a lot. You can monitor time sheets, productivity, production volumes and orders. These tend to be the most cost-effective way to keep on top of your business. Of course, collaborators can make errors, so the data is only as good as the people inputting it. Still, every business wants to be run efficiently. Keeping track using mobile devices means no time is wasted in the office. Supervisors can be on the factory floor reporting live with ease.
