The manufacturing industry — where small changes to operating efficiency can have drastic impacts to the bottom line — has never been one to shy away from innovations that can keep their repeatable processes moving faster and more seamlessly. Smarter mobile devices in the hands of workers certainly serve that end. These are three ways mobility strategies have already begun making big differences in how manufacturing businesses are adjusting their operations and figure to play an increasing role over the next five years. Mobile Is Putting Efficiency Within Every Manufacturers’ Reach Until recently, only the largest manufacturers had the resources to invest in costly (but ultimately rewarding) industrial engineering efficiency studies. Designed to analyze manufacturing processes and gather data down to the most basic level of how workers execute specific tasks, these studies look at the exact time spent and motions involved in them doing so — and can lead to significant workflow improvements. Smart mobile devices (and the apps built on them), though, are not only now inviting small and medium-sized manufacturing businesses to perform such studies affordably, but are also often providing working solutions for the issues those studies reveal. Within a warehouse, for example, mobile devices can collect real-time data on the locations and movements of workers and equipment. Analysis of that data might find that workers are walking from equipment to a stationary terminal 30 feet away to input data dozens of times each day. While that might sound like a routine and relatively unimportant activity, analysis of the data may find that equipping each worker with a mobile device for completing that data input will save the business a surprising sum. These are the kinds of realizations often found and acted upon with this sort of efficiency analysis, and mobile — and the data […]