Importance of Auto Time Capture in your SAP Mobile EAM Solution to help Measure Wrench Time Accurately

One group of people believe that measuring wrench time with a SAP Mobile EAM will add little value to their plant operations. There is another group that believes this metric helps them improve planning and scheduling, but it is hard to measure.

Which group do you belong to?

Work order execution involves non-work tasks including traveling between back-office and plant, waiting for parts, instructions, meetings with teams, and breaks along with the actual job. Amidst all these tasks, accurately measuring wrench time is troublesome.

 Challenges with the common methods companies use to measure wrench time are:

• Manual Timesheet Capture: The technicians should fill in timesheets to give their managers an account of time spent on each task. This method might sound simple and efficient. In practical terms, it is a conscious effort that your technicians might forget. They might think lower wrench time may cost their jobs and so, report incorrect wrench time. On the contrary, contractors will like to maximize their billing time and will round off the nearest hour to maximize their billing. 
  
  

• Manual Governance: Companies send observers to their factory floors to inspect how their technicians are working. They will ask the technicians and record the wrench time on papers. The accuracy depends on the information given by the technicians. Also, this method consumes additional human resources.

Is it worth measuring wrench time?

Tracking wrench time is important for three reasons:

• Tracking improvements in productivity: High wrench time means high productivity, provided the tasks are executed effectively. The average wrench time for most of the organizations is only around 35 percent. For example, your wrench time is increased to 70 percent from 35 percent. If your team was executing 1000 work orders in a month, they will now execute 2000 work orders.

• Identifying time-intensive tasks: Wrench time gives you a clear understanding of how much time a task consumes. This will help you with better planning and scheduling. For example, if a non-critical task is consuming more time than an essential task, you can put the former on hold. This will help you boost asset uptime.

• Asset depreciation: Some fixed assets require repairs that can be depreciated. Wrench time for such repairs can be assigned a monetary value and be depreciated along with other resources needed.

Measuring wrench time with a SAP Mobile EAM solution:

Innovapptive’s mWorkOrder solution offers Auto Time Capture feature to make wrench time measurement an effortless task. Before executing a work order, your technician can start the timer to measure wrench time at an operations level. The technicians can pause and resume the timer as required, capturing accurate time.

What distinguishes this feature from the competition?

The wrench time measurements are automatically posted to the SAP Work Orders or CATS timesheet in real-time, eliminating manual efforts and inaccuracies. This will greatly increase the accuracy of wrench time measurements, helping you make well-informed decisions on planning & scheduling.

Watch how Innovapptive’s mWorkOrder redefines your work order management to improve your plant’s productivity: