A punch type is the activity state an operator was in during one recorded time segment, Setup, Run, Idle, Down, Rework, or Teardown, so every hour on the floor is attributed to a specific kind of work. Only the Run state produces piece counts, which lets a planner compare hours worked against pieces made and see where time actually goes.
This entry defines the punch type and shows how it reads inside EDGEBIC by User Solutions. For the wider index of terms, see the manufacturing glossary; for the detailed stages inside a setup punch, see what is a setup sub-phase; and for the workflow that records these punches, see how to log actual hours and pieces in EDGEBIC.
How it works
When work is tracked at the shop floor, each segment of time is a production punch, and each punch carries exactly one punch type describing what the operator was doing. The types are Setup, for changeover, fixturing, and first-article inspection; Run, for active production; Idle, for waiting with the machine available; Down, for a breakdown or planned downtime; Rework, for reworking non-conforming pieces; and Teardown, for post-run clean-up and tool return.
The key rule is that Run is the only state that contributes pieces. A Run punch is where good, scrap, and rework piece counts are recorded, because that is the only time output is being made. Every other type is duration only. That separation is deliberate: it keeps producing time and non-producing time in different buckets, which is the whole point of tracking.
Punches are the raw material for actuals. Rolled up, they tell you a job's real duration and how that duration split across activities, which is far more useful than a single start-to-finish clock.
A concrete example
Picture an operator's day at a CNC machine broken into labeled slices. First she removes the old fixture and installs the new one and runs a sample part (Setup). Then she runs the job at rate (Run), and this is the only slice where parts are counted. Mid-shift she waits twenty minutes because the next pallet of material has not arrived (Idle). The spindle then trips an alarm and maintenance is called (Down). After the fix, she finishes the run (more Run) and cleans the table and returns the tools (Teardown).
Add the slices up and the shift is not one number; it is a labeled ledger: so many hours of setup, so many of run with a piece count attached, plus the idle and down time that explain why the job took longer than the run alone. A planner reading that ledger knows precisely where the time went.
How EDGEBIC uses it
In EDGEBIC, punch types are captured through the shop-floor kiosk and stored on each production punch. Because only Run carries good, scrap, and rework counts, the system can reconcile hours against pieces and surface the difference between time worked and product made.
That reconciliation is where punch types earn their keep. A job that ran long shows why: a heavy Setup segment points at changeover, a large Idle segment points at material or staffing flow, and a Down segment points at equipment. Each type maps to a different corrective action, so the shop fixes the actual cause rather than guessing.
The counts recorded during Run also feed downstream measures like yield and completion, and the segments feed the actuals that a reschedule preserves. To see the run and rework time those punches credit back to the job, read what production hours are in shop-floor tracking; to see the changeover detail inside a Setup punch, read what is a setup sub-phase; to see the full capture flow, read how to log actual hours and pieces in EDGEBIC.
Expert Q&A: Deep Dive
Q: My operators log a lot of hours but our piece output looks low. How do punch types help me find the cause?
A: Split the logged time by punch type and the gap usually explains itself. If Run hours are low while Setup, Idle, and Down hours are high, the operators are busy but not producing, because too much of the shift went to changeovers, waiting, and breakdowns. That points you at real fixes: reduce setup with a better matrix, remove the Idle causes like late material, or address the Down causes with maintenance. Without punch types, the hours are one blob; with them, you can see exactly which non-producing state is eating the output.
Q: Do I need my operators to punch every state, or is Run enough?
A: Run alone tells you how long production took and how many pieces came off, which is the minimum. But if you want to understand why a job ran long, you need the other types too, because Setup, Idle, Down, and Teardown are where the lost time hides. A shop that only captures Run will see a long job and not know whether it was a slow changeover, a material wait, or a breakdown. Capturing the full set of punch types is what turns actuals from a stopwatch into a diagnosis.
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