Introduction
Have you ever lost a build book? Have you ever had to spend several days going up and down the manufacturing line, making sure every single build book was updated with a new revision of a process, only to have to repeat the process a few weeks later when the work instructions change?
If this experience is familiar to you, then you already know all about manufacturing travelers and the struggles that accompany keeping them up to date. If it wasn’t, let’s talk a little bit about them, how they’re supposed to work, and how you can use Serial to save yourself time and headaches.
What is a “manufacturing traveler”?
A manufacturing traveler is a document (usually physical) that accompanies a product through manufacturing - hence the name “traveler”. It is typically created alongside a work order when an order is received or a build is kicked off. It contains important information about the product - its bill of materials, required quality checkpoints, its process routing, and which data to capture from the production process, to name a few.
What is included in a manufacturing traveler?
To create a useful manufacturing traveler, the following items are essential (but non-exhaustive!):
- The product’s name and description
- Process routing information
- Which processes need to be run
- Instructions for those processes
- Material requirements
- Production stage tracking (whether the product is planned, WIP, complete, etc.)
Other useful sections to include in a manufacturing traveler would be a notes section, where operators and engineers can take non-standardized notes about a product, or information about target times or yields for a given product or process.
Why should you digitize your manufacturing traveler?
- Real-time visibility: By using digital manufacturing travelers, you can track both individual parts and the status of entire work orders at a glance. On top of that, it expedites continuous improvement, since all the data about a given failing process is available at your fingertips and leaves a permanent digital audit trail.
- Increasing production efficiency: Digital manufacturing travelers integrate seamlessly with digital work instructions and inventory management systems, reducing the chance for operator error.
- Compliance: By enforcing tight quality control measures and precise version controlled work instructions, meeting your industry’s regulatory requirements is greatly simplified by relying on digital manufacturing travelers.
- Analytics: If you ever need to compile or analyze data recorded separately in each traveler, having them recorded digitally will save hours, if not days, of time!
Manufacturing travelers in Serial
Process routing information
Here at Serial, we believe in digitizing every part of the manufacturing traveler, and have built the product from the ground up with this goal in mind. Above is an example of a drone manufacturing process, shown with the related manufacturing bill of materials.
Data capture
Since Serial has digitized the manufacturing traveler, simply by typing a serial number into the system, we see the state of the processes that have been run on a drone (this one is complete, so it has run all of its non maintenance steps).
Since the entire process was digitized and completed on the Serial platform, we can also check the results for the quality control tests & linking steps, as well as which operator completed the process, how long it took them (cycle time), and which station the work was completed at.
A fully digital manufacturing traveler
With all the data collected, our serial number lookup page ends up acting as your digital manufacturing traveler, tracking not only the information for the top level component, but thanks to Serial’s genealogy features for as-built bill of materials, also lets you view the manufacturing travelers for every subcomponent included in the products assembly.
Conclusion
In conclusion, manufacturing travelers are a commonly adopted system to ensure product quality while tracking order status, especially while they are work in progress. They capture important information about a product that guides operators and engineers on the proper manufacture of the product. By digitizing manufacturing travelers, you can save days of labor when changing over processes, get a better grasp of the state of your manufacturing, and improve your production control at the same time. Serial is a platform designed to make all of this fast and easy, please reach out to us if you have any questions about the platform or how you can use it to make your manufacturing operations more efficient and robust!
