Industry
Manufacturing
Products
Apps
Number of Apps: 14
Number of Users: 150
Benefits
- Guided process ensures data is entered correctly and efficiently
- Time required for data entry has gone from minutes to just seconds
- Manufacturing Execution System (MES) app integrates well with their third-party ERP system, as well as other apps such as spec sheet app and shop floor audit app
- More seamless process improves efficiency on shop floor
- Real-time data allows better decision making and increases agility
Apparel Mfgr. Streamlines Shop Floor Experience with Mission-Critical Apps
Business Need
Darn Tough Socks’ large, complex ERP system required navigating multiple screens and many steps just to do basic data entry. This technical setup proved difficult and frustrating for workers on the floor, who were there to make socks. Staff would log all information at the end of the day, which meant there were no real-time updates, no way to check on where things were in the process, no way of knowing which socks had the wrong materials or colors, etc. And because workers were interacting directly with the complex ERP, data was frequently duplicated or entered wrong.
Tracking of orders was done using Excel-based spreadsheets, and product specs — including SKUs, colors, sizes and styles — were all kept in binders on paper.
Darn Tough needed to migrate its operations to the cloud while modernizing its manufacturing process, all without any disruption to business. They began looking for a future-proof solution that would allow them to integrate with their new cloud ERP system and would let their shop floor employees focus on what they knew best: making socks.
Solution
Darn Tough chose Jitterbit App Builder, which allowed end users and IT developers to work closely together in an iterative process. The developer could quickly make a functional app, then pass it to users to do acceptance testing and offer feedback, which led to subsequent improvements.
The company also used App Builder to create a spec sheet app, which corrals all the spreadsheets and spec documents into a much easier to use database and has increased efficiency on the manufacturing floor.
Results
While Darn Tough mostly started out creating single-purpose, individual apps for specific business needs, over the past few years, they’ve integrated and grown many of these apps. “The nice thing about App Builder is that you can create a single, very narrow niche app to fill a specific need, or you can create something much more complex,” Darn Tough Socks CIO Tony Harris said.
One app in particular, the Manufacturing Execution System app, has become central to running the manufacturing process. This app started as a small, very specific app designed to scan the traveler that goes along with batches of socks and import that data into the third-party M3 ERP system. But today, it’s running the shop floor and tracking each step of the manufacturing process from start to finish, including data on things like wool colors on the machines, the spinning and drying of socks, any production issues, equipment up/down status, and run times.
The MES has been integrated with other App Builder apps — the spec sheet app, an app for scanning barcodes into the system, for creating and printing stickers for orders, and more. It’s also been integrated with Darn Tough’s cloud-based, third-party ERP, which creates transactional and other records. This setup has not only created a significantly more seamless manufacturing process — it also allows data to be analyzed in real time to help inform better and more agile decisions.
The iterative app development capability has aided with decision making as well. Users can now take a more active role in shaping something tailored to their needs, and developers can get apps out much more quickly. Before App Builder, this process would have taken days, weeks or months — but App Builder has decreased the cycle to just hours or days.
Floor operators are also saving time. App Builder has allowed Darn Tough to create a layer for end users that simplest data entry, complete with guides and guardrails for how and what data can be entered. With App Builder, operators access one screen and enter just a couple of fields, taking data entry time from five minutes a day or just 30 seconds.
“App Builder has become a really important tool in our toolbox because of its flexibility from both the user end and the developer standpoint,” Harris said. “ It allows us to quickly prototype something to see if it’s going to work with our business, and if it doesn’t, we can throw it away and start something new. If it does, we end up with things like our MES system, which is integral to running our shop floor operations.”