Production Tracking in the Glass Industry: Barcoded Job Orders and a Mobile Shop-Floor App

In glass and glass-processing companies, production is usually made to measure: dozens of pieces in different sizes, colours and thicknesses are cut in a single day and then go through edging, tempering or printing. When the stage of an order, the pieces lost to scrap or the jobs nearing their due date are tracked with paper job orders and separate spreadsheets, the information often lives only in the shop-floor team's memory. In this article we explain how recorded production tracking can be set up in glass manufacturing, using the screens of the production system we built for the glass industry.

1. A product defined by the order's dimensions

In glass, a product is rarely a fixed stock item; it is defined by size, direction, colour and thickness. Keeping the properties, components and technical drawings of finished and semi-finished goods on one product card lets planning and production work from the same definition. The order form lists the same details line by line, so agreement with the customer and production preparation rely on the same document.

2. Barcoded job orders: the work itself becomes a record

The job order document brings together product, quantity, operation and barcode details. On the shop floor, when the operator scans their own badge, the machine barcode and the job order barcode, the production start is recorded with who works on which machine and on which job. The answer to "where is this job now?" then comes from a record, not a phone call.

3. Operation and progress tracking

After cutting, a glass order may pass through several operations. Seeing each job order's operations, machines, responsible people and status together lets the team follow completed and pending steps on the floor. Showing planned, produced and scrap quantities side by side for each order makes progress clear at a glance.

4. Recording scrap with its cause

Scrap is unavoidable in glass; what matters is knowing why it happened. Recording scrap with its cause, operation and lot helps reveal at which stage recurring losses occur. Output reports by work centre and machine support this review with recorded data.

5. From purchasing to finished stock

To keep production running, material needs must be seen in time. When purchase requests from production and support teams, supplier orders and their approval status are followed in one system, procurement becomes visible. Tracking finished goods with their warehouse location and customer reservation reduces the time spent searching for products before shipment.

6. A mobile shop-floor app

Records stay current when the team on the floor can act without walking back to a desk. In the mobile app, operators start jobs by barcode, managers follow an overview of output, scrap and active lines, and the sales team manages quotations, revisions and the order form PDF from the phone. The menu opens according to each user's permissions, so everyone sees the actions in their own area. Because the mobile app works on the same records as the web system, office and shop floor see the same information.

Conclusion

Tracking glass production becomes easier when a made-to-measure order moves through one chain of records, from product card to job order, operations, scrap and shipment. Barcodes take the shop-floor link of that chain off paper, and the mobile app brings the information to where the work is done.

You can see the web and mobile screens of our glass-industry system on our Production Software page, and our other mobile projects on the Mobile Software page.