For discrete manufacturing plants, raw material is the largest single cost driver. In sectors like metal fabrication, machining, and electronics assembly, scrap is often accepted as a cost of doing business. However, our audits show that up to 14% of sheet metal, coils, bar stock, and parts are wasted due to inaccurate manual sheets and delayed reporting.
The Real Cost of Paper Job Cards
When operators rely on greasy paper job cards, tracking waste is nearly impossible. Material issues are logged hours after they occur, and scrap is rarely categorized correctly. A supervisor cannot tell if a raw sheet metal plate was cut incorrectly because of machine misalignment, a faulty recipe, or operator error.
"You cannot manage what you do not measure in real time. Paper scrap sheets hide waste until end-of-month stocktakes reveal massive differences."
Step 1: Direct Digital Recipes (BOM)
The first step to stopping material leakage is tying production directly to a digital recipe, also known as the Bill of Materials (BOM). With ATIITHI software, work orders auto-calculate material allocations based on the BOM recipe. The system reserves the exact amount of stock in the warehouse, preventing operators from issuing excess sheets without authorization.
Step 2: Floor Touchscreens for Active Logging
By replacing paper job traveler cards with rugged shopfloor tablets, operators log scrap immediately. ATIITHI provides simple touch buttons to record:
- Setup Scrap: Material used during machine calibration.
- Defect Scrap: Defective items rejected by operator checksheets.
- Off-Cut Stock: Scrap pieces that can be reused in future runs.
Real Results with ATIITHI
By implementing digital BOM reservations and tablet-based operator tracking, discrete manufacturing plants reduce raw material leakage by an average of 14% within the first three months. Stock records remain accurate, and managers get instant alerts when scrap rates exceed set limits.