Most manufacturing floors still run on paper: a printed traveler per job, times written in pen, lot numbers copied from a label, and a pile of sheets that someone keys into the ERP hours or days later. The paper is not the real problem — the delay and the transcription are. By the time the data reaches NetSuite it is old, and nobody can tell whether it is right.
FactoryBridge removes the round trip by making the station itself the point of entry.
| On the traveler | On the station instead |
|---|---|
| Which job to run next | A list scoped to that work center, straight from NetSuite routing |
| Start and stop times in pen | Setup and run timed separately, to the second |
| "Machine down 40 min" scrawled in a margin | A pause against a coded reason, captured as it happens |
| Lot numbers copied from labels | Lot, bin and status chosen from what is actually on hand |
| Quantity written at the end | A completion entered and validated against what remains |
| Initials in a box | Every action attributed to a signed-in operator |
Because the console writes to NetSuite records directly, there is no batch of sheets to enter and no transcription step to get wrong. The work order, the item, the lots and the bins are the same records your office is already looking at — read live, not copied.
That also removes the argument that follows every discrepancy. There is one record, created once, by the person who did the work.
The usual objection to going paperless is the network. If a tablet drops off, submissions made on it are held and sync when it reconnects — component issues, completions, co-yield and yield variance. An operator who has started a job can finish it and record it. Picking up a new work order does need a connection, because the work orders live in NetSuite; it is resilience for the job in hand rather than full offline operation.
Coded downtime reasons, setup separated from run, per-completion times, and an audit log filterable by operator, module, action, work order and date. None of that survives a clipboard. It is also the raw material for any later conversation about throughput, changeover or machine utilization.
NetSuite shop floor control covers dispatch and timing, work order tracking covers status, and lot traceability covers the material record.
Explore FactoryBridgeOperators sign in to the console with an operator role, which grants all permissions except user management and invitations. How that maps to licensing depends on your NetSuite agreement — worth confirming against your account.
A tablet or PC with a browser at each station. Scanning uses the device camera, so a dedicated scanner is optional rather than required.
For time, material and completion capture it stops being the record. Some plants keep a printed sheet for physical routing or customer paperwork; the difference is that it is no longer the thing that gets keyed in later.
Yes. Scoping is per location and work center, so one station can run on the console while the rest of the plant carries on as before.