Managing work across various sites poses significant coordination and data management challenges in today's interconnected world, where manufacturers operate across multiple regions and geographies. With operations spanning different time zones and locations, ensuring efficient coordination and accurate data management becomes crucial. In this intricate business landscape, one element stands out as a critical enabler of swift operations: Coordinated Universal Time (UTC).
Space.com, an online publication focused on space exploration, astronomy, skywatching, and entertainment, provides some interesting historical and linguistic context behind UTC. "The idea behind universal time was first conceived in the late 1800s when rail and shipping lines connected the world, and standard timetables were necessary for coordinating economic activity (…). You might be wondering why UTC is the abbreviation for Coordinated Universal Time. The acronym was a compromise between English and French speakers: Coordinated Universal Time would normally be abbreviated as CUT, and the French name, Temps Universel Coordonné, would be TUC."
Why see UTC?
If you're a manufacturer, you know it best: Managing operations in a single site is relatively straightforward. Monitoring processes across a few sites in the same time zone can be challenging but is generally doable. Controlling processes and work across multiple sites in different time zones is often painful.
According to a study titled Future Challenges for Multi-Site Manufacturing System of Systems published by ResearchGate, a commercial social networking site for scientists and researchers," (…), there is an increasing trend towards more geographically distributed manufacturing at both the intra- and inter-firm level, brought about by costs, tax policies and specialization on core businesses. Few vertically integrated manufacturing enterprises exist today with the vast majority of manufacturers embedded within globally distributed supply networks."
So, if you're in the third group, trying to stay on top of manufacturing operations dispersed across time zones, we feel your pain. Imagine you're trying to see when a piece of hardware was completed or when a defect was raised. When viewing this, do you care about viewing the time in the time zone where it happened or in your time zone? In most cases, you care about your own time zone. Obviously, there are situations when you're interested in both, such as labor records, to allow for analysis of when people clock in and out. Whatever your reasons, needs, and preferences are, Manufacturo supports both.
Centralized work management
Manufacturo revolutionizes the way manufacturers manage work across various sites within the same instance. By offering centralized work management capabilities, our manufacturing software simplifies site-to-site transfers and enables seamless coordination. You can effectively conduct work simultaneously across multiple sites with ease, enhancing overall efficiency and productivity.
Smart date handling
One of Manufacturo's standout features is its smart utilization of UTC for data storage, providing you with the information on where the work took place and sorting this info in UTC with a DateTimeOffset. Unlike traditional systems that rely solely on local time, Manufacturo stores timestamps in UTC alongside the relevant work locations. This approach streamlines global operations by ensuring consistency and accuracy across diverse geographical locations.
Localized display
Trust us; we've been in your shoes. We understand the significance of displaying dates in your local time to enhance user experience and facilitate better decision-making. That's why we knew you needed manufacturing software that enables you to see UTC. With its capability to convert UTC to local time seamlessly, Manufacturo ensures that you can view timestamps in your preferred time zone without any confusion. This localized display feature guarantees consistency, regardless of the geographical location of your sites.
Enhanced analytics
By enabling both UTC and local timestamps, Manufacturo empowers manufacturers with enhanced analytical capabilities and facilitates efficient cross-site operations. You can leverage dual timestamp storage to conduct comprehensive data analysis and overcome the complexities of operating in multiple time zones simultaneously. The UTC timestamps are just accessible to look at, so if you view something from your time zone, Manufacturo will record and show that entry in your time, not the server's local time. So, whether it's labor analysis or performance evaluation, Manufacturo is super helpful for reporting and super powerful for auditing, driving informed decisions, and process optimization.
We see (the value in) UTC
When we say we feel your pain as a manufacturer, we really do. We've walked your path and have an extensive hands-on experience in complex manufacturing environments. We know the value that UTC brings to your world of production. Manufacturo is built for emergent high-tech start-ups but, with UTC, you are future-proofed if you want to expand to other sites both domestic and international.