Shop floor time tracking records how long each operator spends on each job and operation, at the moment the work happens. For a UK SME manufacturer, that record is what turns a quote into a known margin. Without it, labour cost is a guess made on Friday afternoon from paper timesheets and memory.
This guide explains how manufacturing time tracking software works, what it should capture, what to look for when you choose one, and how DynamxMFG handles it.
What Is Shop Floor Time Tracking?
There are two kinds of time on a shop floor, and most businesses only track one of them properly.
Attendance time is when someone arrives and leaves. It feeds payroll, and most factories already have a clock card or a signing-in sheet for it.
Labour time is what that person did between clock in and clock out: which work order, which operation, for how long, and how many parts they made. This is the number that tells you whether a job made money. It is also the one that usually lives on the back of a job card, if it is written down at all.
Shop floor time tracking captures both, and ties the labour time to the work order and the operation on its routing. The gap between the two is also useful. If an operator was on site for eight hours and booked five hours to jobs, you want to know where the other three went.
How Manufacturing Time Tracking Software Works
The principle is simple. An operator identifies themselves, picks the job and operation they are starting, and books on. When they stop, they book off and record the quantity completed. The software stamps the times, so nobody has to remember them later.
A typical day looks like this:
- Clock in. The operator scans a badge at the entrance clocking station. Attendance starts.
- Book on to a work order. At the machine or cell, they select or scan the work order and the operation, for example “CNC mill, op 20”.
- Stop and restart. If the machine goes down or material is missing, they record a stoppage with a reason. Time spent on cleaning, meetings or training goes against a non-productive code rather than disappearing.
- Book off. They record the quantity completed and any scrap. The next operation can see the parts are ready.
- Clock out. Attendance ends, and the day’s booked time sits alongside it.
Because each booking lands against an operation, the software can compare the actual time with the estimated time on the routing straight away. A job that is running over shows up while there is still time to do something about it.
What Labour Time Tracking in Manufacturing Should Capture
If you only record hours per job, you know a job overran but not why. Useful labour time tracking captures:
- Who did the work, so you can see training needs and balance skills across shifts.
- Which operation, not just which job, so you can see that the overrun was at setup on the lathe, not at assembly.
- Estimated versus actual time for each operation, which is how you check whether your quotes are realistic.
- Quantities made and scrapped, so time per part is real rather than averaged.
- Stoppage reasons, so recurring downtime has a cause attached.
- Non-productive time, so indirect hours are visible instead of hidden inside job costs.
Paper Timesheets vs Time Tracking Software
| Paper timesheets and job cards | Shop floor time tracking software | |
|---|---|---|
| When time is recorded | End of shift or end of week, from memory | At the moment an operator books on or off |
| Level of detail | Usually hours per job | Minutes per operation, per operator, with quantities |
| Admin effort | Someone types it into a spreadsheet | No re-keying |
| Job costing | Known after the job has shipped, if at all | Actual versus estimate visible while the job is running |
| Downtime | Rarely recorded | Logged with a reason code |
What to Look For in Shop Floor Time Tracking Software
Fast booking. If booking on takes more than a few seconds, operators will batch it up at the end of the shift and you are back to guesswork. Badge scans and barcodes on job paperwork beat typing job numbers.
Capture at the point of work. A terminal thirty metres away gets skipped. Choose hardware that fits your layout: a clocking station at the entrance for attendance, and screens or scanners where the work happens. Our comparison of shop floor data collection methods: barcodes, tablets and clocking stations goes through the trade-offs of each.
Links to work orders and routings. Time that is not attached to an operation cannot tell you which step overran. Standalone time and attendance systems are built for payroll, not job costing.
Live reporting. Supervisors should be able to see who is on which job right now, and managers should get utilisation and productivity figures without building a spreadsheet.
Editable history with an audit trail. People forget to book off. A supervisor needs to be able to correct a booking, and you need to see that it was corrected.
What did your last job really cost?
Build the true cost of a job from material, labour, machine time, setup, scrap and overhead, then compare it with your quote.
A UK Angle: Payroll, Working Time and Quoting
UK manufacturers have a few reasons of their own to get this right. Attendance records support payroll and holiday calculations, and they help you show you are managing hours under the Working Time Regulations. If you hold ISO 9001, digital records of who did what, and when, are far easier to produce at audit than a filing cabinet of job cards.
The bigger reason is commercial. Most UK SME job shops win work on price. If your quoted times are wrong and nobody knows, you can win a stream of work that loses money on every batch. Accurate labour time per operation is the only reliable way to check a quote against reality and correct the next one.
How DynamxMFG Handles Time Tracking
DynamxMFG is a MES built for UK SME discrete manufacturers, and time tracking is part of how it works rather than an add-on. Employees clock in and out at a clocking station by scanning a QR badge. On the shop floor, they track time against the operations of each work order, so estimated and actual times sit side by side on every job.
Non-productive activity such as cleaning or meetings is booked against Z-codes, and stoppages are recorded with a reason. Supervisors can view clocking data, assign tasks and edit tracking history. Reports include Employee Clocking, Employee Time Sheet, Employee Utilisation, Employee Productivity and Stoppage Reason Analysis.
The Albion Knitting Company recovered 30 minutes per operator per day using DynamxMFG.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the difference between time and attendance and shop floor time tracking?
Time and attendance records when someone arrives and leaves, mainly for payroll. Shop floor time tracking records what they worked on, against which work order and operation, so you can cost jobs and measure productivity.
Can operators clock in and out of a work order without paperwork?
Yes. Operators identify themselves with a badge, select or scan the work order and operation, and book on and off. The job card becomes optional rather than the record.
How accurate is manufacturing time tracking software compared with timesheets?
Software records the time at the moment of the booking, so it removes estimating from memory and re-keying errors. Accuracy still depends on operators booking on and off, which is why fast booking at the point of work matters.
Does time tracking help with job costing?
Yes. Labour is often the largest variable cost on a machined or assembled part. With actual time captured per operation, you can compare it with the estimate on every job and see where margin is lost.
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