At your machine, you pull out your employee card and "scan" the bar-code through the Satelite Plus terminal. Moments later, your name appears on the screen to verify that you are clocked in and ready for work.

7:00 AM
The bell rings, and you pick up your first bundle of the day. Pull out the bundle card, scan the bar-code through your terminal and return the card to the bundle. No bother with unfolding a ticket, searching for your coupon, pulling out your scissors, clipping, pasting, initialing... not only was all of that time-consuming and aggravating, but it threw your pace off, too.

The terminal "beeps" and tells you the piecerate and quantity for the bundle that you're about to begin. As you check to make sure that you're paid correctly, you note the "clock" on the terminal, telling you that you have 4-1/2 minutes to complete the bundle to meet your goal. As a 120% operator, you know that you must maintain this steady pace all day in order to make good money.

Halfway through the bundle, you glance at the terminal. It says that you still have 2-1/2 minutes left, and that you should have done 8 pieces by now. You've done 9. You're beating the clock.

Finished; the terminal says you still have 15 seconds left, and that you have finished the bundle at 128%. You wonder, not for the first time, why the company gave you this money-making tool. You're feeling better now. For the first time you think that you'll make at least 120% for the week, you may want to set your target at 130%.

11:30 - Lunch Time
First, a quick check: you key in your favorite earnings inquiry, and the terminal tells you that you have made $31.68, or $7.04/ hour - 128% for the morning. You hit the lunch key and head for the cafeteria, thinking once again that you bypass the timeclock and get another few minutes rest.

2:48 PM
You sit down at your machine, just back from the afternoon break. You know that you took a few minutes too many, but it shouldn't make any difference. Your terminal, however, seems to think otherwise: it says that you have taken 14 minutes too long on this bundle, and should have done 37 pieces by now. You groan, annoyed at the terminal and knowing that you have just cheated yourself of some of that hard-earned money. You ask for your earnings, and find that you have dropped to 122%. You'll just have to make it up.

3:29 PM
You finish your last bundle, working right up to the bell: no need to get up early just to stand in line at the timeclock, or paste tickets, or calculate your earnings. Now you just write down your total earnings for the day. You key in one last earnings inquiry, and are rewarded with good news: you made $54.96 today, and worked at over 125%. You made up your wasted time and still had your best day ever. Now you know that next week you're going to set your motivational target at 130%.

You no longer wonder why the company gave you this device:

• Satelite Plus helps you make more money!
• The company as a whole devotes more time and effort to producing a quality product, and you don't get back repairs that don't belong to you anymore.
• You are working less overtime and Saturdays now that the factory runs smoother.
• Your supervisor is taking more time to show you some things which have helped your production.
• The plant engineer has commented about your "improved performance".

  Things run so much smoother around here since the company installed Satelite Plus. You hit the "clock out" key and head for home.

You select "Current Production and Inventory" from the menu. It shows current production and inventory levels for every job in your department, and projects the entire day. Side seaming is going to be a bottleneck, all right: the computer projects 1,100 garments against a target of 1,600. You had forgotten about those plaids coming through today, further aggravating the absenteeism problem. Satelite Plus remembered them.

It's time to ask for help: you tell the computer that you need to "balance" side seaming. It shows 4 other operators who can help out on the job, and shows that 2 of them are working on jobs that are going to exceed production. You tell the computer to "try it out" - what happens if we transfer them? It illustrates that the transfers will give you a total of 1,770 units on side seaming, and you'll just make production on the jobs that they are leaving. It warns you that one of the operators will cost $12.50 in excess labor cost. You tell the computer to just transfer the on-standard operator - that way there won't be any excess cost.

Back to the "Current Production and Inventory" screen: side seaming looks pretty good now, and the rest of the department is in excellent shape. You'll check again around lunch time.

In preparation for your daily supervisor's meeting, you print your up-to-the-minute "Cut Production Tracking Summary" report. You have tailored this report to give you a clear picture of your department. The report tells you how your cuts are progressing through each job in your department, which ones are moving smoothly, which ones need attention and where the attention should be focused. Armed with this information you don't dread these meetings anymore. You are confident that you will be able to quickly answer questions which might arise during the meeting, what a great feeling.

Remember what expediting used to be like? Nobody knew until the irate customer called, threatening cancellation, and then a panic-stricken effort ensued to dig through all of the bins, looking for the right color of fabric. Sounds like the Stone Age. You haven't missed a delivery in 4 months.

7:20 AM
Now that the department is "set up," you go to work: you have a new operator to train, another operator whose production has been falling off in the afternoons and, as always, quality to check. Fortunately, you can give this work your full attention: you never touch time cards (they no longer exist) or gummed sheets (gone). You don't miss taking up production, either.

9:00 AM
Now you select "Section Status". The screen shows you that your section is currently working at 94%. Not bad but below what we normally run at. You notice that your operators are spending 89% of their time on-standard and while on-standard are earning at 102%. No real problem here. However you also find that you have 3 operators off-standard and that they are only working at 41%. Here's the problem. So you bring up those operators on your display and notice that Mary's machine is still down and Bobbie has been on repairs much too long. You now know what to do. You head back out onto the floor with the sole purpose of getting those people back on-standard and keeping your efficiency high. What a great feeling to know that with Satelite Plus I can actually find problems before the plant manager.

Sound too good to be true? Not in a plant equipped with Satelite Plus.

Another absentee is on pocket-setting, and the screen shows that pocket-setting will be running close today. Not much more that you can do there -- the supervisor has already transferred the only utility operator. The "Current Excess Costs" screen shows that the utility operator is costing $1.25 per hour over coupons. It may be time to start training another operator. You call the sales department to tell them that the sample pockets are going to be delayed.

Everything else looks good -- the supervisors have things well in hand. The realtime production and inventory information, with the built-in projections and simulations, enables them to see problems coming and work out the best solutions.

7:45 AM
It's time to sit down to review last week's plant performance reports. Performance and excess costs for the plant look good, but the fronts department missed its goals again. You look at the operator details for the department and see that two trainees are still behind their plan and an experienced operator has dropped off in production again. It's time to take some action. You call engineering and tell them to pull the bundle-by-bundle performance reports for all three operators for last week and find out what's going on, and you arrange to talk to the supervisor at the first break. Now you know that it's not another operator you need, but some close attention to the ones you've got. This is just the kind of information you always needed. The performance and excess costs for the rest of the shop look great: they have both been improving steadily since you installed the system.

Next you look at your "Cut Completion by Job" analysis screen for selected cuts you know need to ship this week. This report shows you where the cuts are in relation to where they should be on a job-by-job basis. With just a glance you can tell if a cut is in danger of missing a promised delivery date. The cut that had all of the cutting problems last week is running late. Better tell the supervisors to push it through.

A couple of other cuts are starting to fall behind at button-sew. You look at "Production and Inventory" for last week and see that button-sew missed production by 300 units on Friday and by 650 for the week. Excess costs look high at button-sew, too - mostly machine delay.  It could be a problem with the button-sew machine. You add up the off-standard excess costs, the parts costs and the mechanics' time on the machine, and it's clear that it is time to buy a new machine - it will pay for itself in a few months.

Meanwhile, it's a production bottleneck. You call the supervisor and tell her to work some overtime tonight on button-sew, before it affects other jobs. The "Cut Completion by Job" analysis gives you plenty of advance notice: you make yourself a note to check the progress again in the morning.

8:15 AM
It's only 8:15 AM and you already have a good handle on today's production. Now you want to look at the actual production costs for the new styles running this season. You select "Actual Style Cost Analysis" on your terminal and look at the new styles. Just as you thought. That new model which is selling so well is actually costing about 30% over standard. It's almost all "make-up" and "extra handing." You knew that it was going to be a problem, but before Satelite Plus, you didn't have a way of isolating the costs. Now you can go to the Sales Department and make a good case for raising the price on this one. You wonder how much money you could have saved your company if you had this kind of information years ago?

8:40 AM
It's now 8:40 and you have done more than you used to be able to do in a whole morning before Satelite Plus. What an improvement. The system enables you to anticipate problems, and helps you to get them under control. No more surprises. Everyone is better off now. Operator earnings have improved. Supervisors have the time to work with their people the way they should. The engineers are spending more time finding better ways to make the products. The payroll clerks have been reassigned to implement a new quality assurance program.

The bottom line is, costs are down dramatically and the shop has never run more smoothly.

You start by doing the "8 hour" follow-ups. You recall that a follow-up required that an engineer stand on the floor with the operator for an entire day. Now with Satelite Plus you can get most of the information you need by reviewing the detailed log printout. Satelite Plus shows you the time worked and efficiency on each bundle for the entire day. The log printout shows that both operators perform fine most of the day, but fall to less than 50% when they work on a certain cut. Some legwork shows that it is a "hard" fabric that requires more stops to work in the fullness. Problem identified; they need some methods work, but it won't require an entire day of timing bundles.

9:25 AM
It's 9:25 AM and you are ready to cost out the three new styles. This won't take long. You can do this by finding "similar to" styles on Satelite Plus and modifying a few operations until the new style is defined. With the power of Satelite Plus, you copy the similar style, add the new pocket operations, change the inspection rate and delete the tab operation; all in a few minutes. The second style goes even faster. You only have to change two rates.

10:30 AM
At 10:30 a supervisor tells you that a piecerate must be changed on a cut. It seems that there is a cutting problem on some bundles already in sewing. This used to be a big problem. Now with Satelite Plus, it can be fixed quickly without distracting everyone. You'll change the rate on the operation in just one place and the system will handle everything else. No more looking for bundles and "marking up" the coupons. That used to waste a whole morning. With Satelite Plus you can do this on a permanent or temporary basis for a style, a cut or even a single bundle.

11:00 AM
At 11:00 you are ready to look at the style which "production" claims will never reach standard. Satelite Plus lets you see the "actual" cost including excess costs by category for each style and cutting order. A quick review of the system's record of actual costs and we can see that there really is a problem. The style is running high on make-up, and it's all on the side seaming operation. Piecerate Performance shows that overall, operators perform at over 110% on that piecerate. Some research on the floor shows that the method is substantially different for this style. A new rate must be set. Production was right about the standard cost being a problem. You'll have to adjust the rate and tell marketing about the slight increase in cost. Before Satelite Plus, you realize the company never would have known about specific cost problems like this one.

1:00 PM
At 1 :00 the plant manager is having a meeting to look at some operator reassignments and he wants your input. You look over Satelite Plus' record of skills histories and actual performance on the jobs and operators in question. You even let the system simulate some transfers and see that there are two or three acceptable alternatives. You know that you are going to this meeting with a solution in hand.

It's only 2:30 and already you have done more than two engineers could have done in an entire day before Satelite Plus.