What does shop floor control include?
Shop floor control (SFC) sits between the production plan and the machines and people doing the work. The plan says what should be made; shop floor control keeps it followed and corrected during the shift. Typical functions are:
- Order release: issuing work orders or jobs to a cell or line when materials, tooling and people are ready.
- Scheduling: deciding the order jobs run on each work centre.
- Tracking: recording where each job is, how much is complete, and the time, scrap and downtime on each operation.
- Exceptions: showing what is behind plan and why.
- Response: getting the right person to the problem quickly.
Shop floor control vs MES vs shop floor management
| Term | Main focus | Usually delivered by |
|---|---|---|
| Shop floor control | Releasing and tracking work orders through production | ERP module, MES or paper and spreadsheets |
| Manufacturing execution system (MES) | Real-time execution data from machines and operators | Specialist software connected to equipment |
| Shop floor management | The routines leaders use to run and improve the floor | Tiered meetings, visual boards, gemba walks and standard work |
Control tells you the state of the jobs; management is how people act on it every day. A plant needs both.
How do you run shop floor control well?
- Define the standard. Write down what must be true before a job is released: materials, tooling, drawings, people with the right skills and a checked machine.
- Make status visible. Show plan against actual at the line or cell, using a visual management board or SQDC board.
- Hold a short start-of-shift meeting. Review yesterday, today's plan and known risks in a tier 1 meeting.
- Define the escalation path. Agree who is called, by when, for each type of problem. An andon is the classic signal.
- Capture the cause, not just the stop. Record why a job ran late and turn repeat causes into actions.
- Check that the routine is followed. Leaders confirm the process during gemba walks and layered process audits.
Example
At the start-of-shift meeting a machining team leader sees job three is waiting on a fixture. The shortage goes on the board with an owner and a time, the job order changes so the machine keeps running, and the issue goes to the tier 2 meeting if the fixture is still missing by mid-morning.