Maximizing Shop Floor Productivity: Leveraging iMiner for VISUAL ERP to Enhance Team Performance

As a shop floor supervisor or manager using Infor VISUAL ERP, you’re tasked with keeping production humming, schedules on track, and your team performing at their best. But with different jobs, machines, and employee skill levels, how do you measure performance fairly and spot opportunities to improve? The Employee Performance and Setup Efficiency Report, built using tools like iMiner for VISUAL ERP, unlocks powerful data insights to help you optimize your team’s productivity, streamline setups, and drive operational excellence. Let’s explore how this report can transform your shop floor by empowering you to make smarter, data-driven decisions.

What’s the Report All About?

Your shop floor is a busy place—operators producing parts, setting up machines, and tackling a variety of jobs. The Employee Performance and Setup Efficiency Report pulls critical data from VISUAL ERP to give you a clear, fair view of how each team member is performing. It focuses on two key areas:

• Production Runs: When operators are making parts, measured by output, efficiency, and quality.
• Setups: When they’re prepping machines, measured by time spent and efficiency compared to expected standards.

This report isn’t about micromanaging—it’s about understanding what drives your team’s performance and where you can make a difference. Using iMiner, you can extract data like hours worked, parts produced, scrap rates, and setup times, then turn it into actionable insights that account for the unique demands of each job and machine.

Insight #1: Optimize Production Performance

The report uses iMiner to dive into production run data, showing how efficiently your team is producing parts. Key metrics include:

• Parts Produced: Total good parts completed per employee.
• Run Time: Hours spent on production (excluding setup time).
• Efficiency Score: How close each operator’s output is to the maximum possible for their job and machine.

What makes this powerful is fairness. The report adjusts for differences in machine speed and job complexity. For example, an operator producing 560 parts in 6 hours on a machine rated at 80 parts per hour scores an efficiency of 116%. Another producing 800 parts on a faster machine (120 parts per hour) might score 95%. Both are performing well, and the report ensures you’re comparing apples to apples.

How This Helps You:

• Recognize Top Performers: Identify operators with high efficiency scores and leverage their skills for critical jobs or to mentor others.
• Pinpoint Training Needs: Low scores can highlight where an employee might need support, like training on a specific machine or process.
• Balance Workloads: Use efficiency data to assign operators to jobs that match their strengths, boosting overall output.

Action Tip: Review efficiency scores weekly. Celebrate high performers and meet with those with lower scores to discuss challenges, like machine issues or skill gaps, and create tailored improvement plans.

Insight #2: Streamline Setup Processes

Setups—preparing machines for new jobs—can be a time sink, eating into production hours. The report extracts setup data to compare actual setup times against expected times for each job and machine, with metrics like:

• Setup Hours: Total time spent on setups.
• Number of Setups: Frequency of setup tasks.
• Setup Efficiency: Whether operators are meeting, beating, or missing standard setup times.

For instance, if a job’s standard setup time is 1.5 hours but an operator averages 2 hours, their setup efficiency is 75%. This flags an opportunity to investigate—maybe the setup process is outdated, or the operator needs a refresher.

How This Helps You:

• Reduce Downtime: Identify operators or jobs with low setup efficiency and implement training or process tweaks to speed things up.
• Optimize Scheduling: Spot jobs with frequent or lengthy setups and group similar tasks to minimize changeovers.
• Improve Standards: If many operators miss setup time targets, the expected times in VISUAL ERP might need updating to reflect reality.

Action Tip: Check setup efficiency across your team. Pair operators with low scores with top performers for shadowing, and analyze high-setup jobs to see if batching or process changes can cut time.

Insight #3: Enhance Quality Control

Scrap parts waste time, materials, and money. The report pulls data on scrap rates—the percentage of defective parts produced during runs—helping you monitor quality at the employee level. A low scrap rate (e.g., 2-3%) signals consistent quality, while a higher rate might point to issues like material defects, machine problems, or operator errors.

How This Helps You:

• Maintain High Standards: Low scrap rates show which operators are delivering quality, reinforcing best practices.
• Address Issues Quickly: High scrap rates let you dig into causes—whether it’s a specific job, machine, or training gap—and act before costs pile up.
• Drive Team Accountability: Use scrap data to set quality goals and track progress, fostering a culture of excellence.

Action Tip: Monitor scrap rates in the report. For operators with high rates, investigate patterns (e.g., specific machines or jobs) and collaborate on solutions, like machine maintenance or quality checks.

Insight #4: Balance Run and Setup for Maximum Output

The report’s real strength is connecting production and setup performance. Operators with heavy setup demands have less time to produce parts, which can skew their output. By showing both run and setup metrics, the report puts performance in context. For example, an operator with 2 hours of setups and a high efficiency score in 6 hours of production is making every minute count, even if their total parts are lower.

How This Helps You:

• Fair Evaluations: Judge operators on efficiency, not just raw output, ensuring those tackling frequent setups aren’t penalized.
• Smarter Job Planning: Identify jobs or machines with excessive setups and adjust schedules to prioritize longer runs, boosting throughput.
• Team Synergy: Optimize setup and run balance across the team to maximize shop floor productivity.

Action Tip: Use the report to spot operators with high setup hours. Experiment with batching similar jobs or reassigning tasks to reduce setups, then track the impact on run efficiency.

How iMiner for VISUAL ERP Powers These Insights

iMiner for VISUAL ERP is your key to unlocking the data trapped in your ERP system. It pulls critical information from labor tickets (tracking hours, output, and scrap) and operation records (detailing expected run and setup times for jobs and machines). With iMiner, you can extract:

• Hours spent on production vs. setups for each operator.
• Good and scrap parts produced per job.
• Expected vs. actual setup times for accurate efficiency comparisons.
• Job and machine-specific standards to ensure fair performance metrics.

This data fuels the Employee Performance and Setup Efficiency Report, giving you a clear, actionable view of your team’s performance. Whether you’re generating a detailed report or building a dashboard, iMiner makes it easy to access the insights you need to lead your shop floor effectively.

Your Roadmap to a High-Performing Shop Floor

The Employee Performance and Setup Efficiency Report is your tool for building a stronger, more efficient team. Here’s how to put it to work:

1. Analyze Regularly: Review the report daily or weekly to track efficiency, setup performance, and scrap rates. Use it to spot trends and act quickly.
2. Recognize Excellence: Celebrate operators with high run or setup efficiency, and encourage them to share tips with the team.
3. Support Improvement: For operators with lower scores or high scrap, offer training, adjust assignments, or investigate machine issues.
4. Optimize Operations: Use setup data to streamline schedules, reduce changeovers, and maximize production time.
5. Engage Your Team: Share report insights with operators to foster collaboration and accountability, turning data into a tool for growth.

The Bottom Line

Your shop floor is only as strong as the team behind it, and the Employee Performance and Setup Efficiency Report, powered by iMiner for VISUAL ERP, gives you the data to unlock their potential. By understanding who’s excelling in production, where setups can be faster, how quality can improve, and how to balance tasks, you can drive efficiency, cut waste, and keep your operation running smoothly. This isn’t just about numbers—it’s about empowering your team to do their best work and making your shop floor a powerhouse of productivity.

So, fire up iMiner, pull that report, and start turning data into action. Your team’s ready to shine—let’s make it happen!