For manufacturers it is vital to track and trace every aspect of the production process as they drive to eliminate costly errors and regulatory non-compliances. Implementing traceability in your operations is creating a documented trail of each product, including the components used and the quality achieved.

Traceability enables manufacturers to ensure compliance and quality control, avoiding product recalls while better managing customer relationships. If manufacturers are confronted with customer complaints or recalls, they are able to go through the traced information and perform an in-depth root cause analysis, thus providing the basis for further optimizations in their production processes.

Therefore, it is a smart idea to incorporate traceability into the manufacturer operations, especially for more complex products. Manufacturers are able to capture data from their automated processes (sensors, IO, PLC, robots, drives, etc.) but they are limited to log sheets and operator displays for their manual workbenches.

With the Arkite platform manufacturers are now able to also capture relevant information regarding the manual operations in their facility. Every manual assembly or picking task will be logged with the corresponding timestamp. Additional parameters and variables can be stored. These data are represented in graphical, ready-to-use, real-time dashboards in the Arkite software. Moreover, customers can also easily set up their own dashboards. This will give manufacturers more insights into their production processes, product output, cycle times and operator efficiency. Arkite’s Operator Guidance platform gives the manufacturers the combined information of their automation and manual operations.