How Obeetee tracks furniture production on the factory floor with smartphone barcode scanning

Obeetee is one of India’s oldest and best known rug makers. Founded in 1920 in Mirzapur, Uttar Pradesh, the company has been exporting hand-knotted carpets for over a century and has since expanded into furniture, which it manufactures in Rajasthan.

Tracking production on a busy shop floor

Turning raw timber into finished furniture involves many production steps on many different machines, from saws to CNC routers. Each step is driven by a printed production order that travels with the work.

Obeetee wanted to know exactly which production order was processed on which machine, by whom, in what quantity and for how long. Recording this by hand is slow and error-prone, and it gives management no up-to-date picture of what is happening on the floor.

The Production Scanner App

Obeetee built the Production Scanner App, a mobile web app that supports and tracks shop floor activities. Operators scan barcodes with their mobile phones, using STRICH Barcode Scanning SDK, without dedicated scanning hardware.

To start an activity, the operator first scans the machine barcode, followed by the barcode on the printed production order. The app then captures the production order, product, machine, operator, quantity and start time. Once the work is completed, the operator records the processed quantity and moves on.

Why a web app

As a web app, the Production Scanner App runs in the browser of any operator’s phone, with no app store deployment or device management required. New versions are available to everyone on the floor immediately, and the scanned data flows straight into Obeetee’s ERP system.

Results

The app gives Obeetee real-time production tracking and reporting, including machine-level activity, quantities, processing times and production history. It helps Obeetee to:

• reduce manual data entry
• improve production traceability
• monitor machine utilization and production progress
• identify delays and repeated processing
• get accurate production data

Overall, the app enables faster, more accurate and data-driven production monitoring across the manufacturing floor.