5 Ways for Manufacturing Companies to Be More Efficient
Monday, August 29, 2016, 6:00 AM | Leave Comment
Running a manufacturing company can present many challenges to owners that can hinder efficiency.
When the company is not as efficient as planned, this can have a negative effect on manufacturing costs and make it difficult to generate the most amount of profit in a given situation.
No company owner likes to hear about waste. The less waste that arises during production, the more competitive the company can be against others in the marketplace.
Below are five ways in which your manufacturing company can boost efficiency levels from various fronts.
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Simplify production processes and remove redundant ones
Take a look at what processes your company is currently using and see which ones are wasting the most amount of time for your business.
If the processes are too complicated and have unnecessary amounts of steps, this should be taken into great consideration when completing a plan to maximize efficiency.
A Quality Digest article detailed the way in which Butler Automatic simplified their production. The company used what is called cellular manufacturing to eliminate redundant tasks and increase precision in creating equipment.
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Keep everything neat and tidy
In order for your company to become more efficient, effective organization is also needed to optimize the production pipeline. Work areas need to be tidy to motivate employees to work quicker.
That also means that these areas need to be clean to ensure a higher quality end result and better health for the employees. It also helps to create a method that will make it easier to check if the supplies are where they should be.
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The balanced scorecard is your friend
While you need to look at ways to streamline production, how will you know if the measures you implemented have been effective? That is where the balanced scorecard comes into effect.
It allows you to evaluate business processes and customer related fulfillment and allow you to know how your company will do in the future.
With the balanced scorecard, you would take data stemming from the number of products produced monthly to how many workers are still with your company and note any changes to those statistics.
Compare any new statistics to older ones as your manufacturing production improves as a means to evaluate whether the changes have been a success.
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Provide proper equipment maintenance
Machines need to be properly maintained as a preventative measure for your manufacturing company.
It is a mistake to assume that buying new equipment all the time would be best course of action in scenarios like this.
It is a better practice to take care of existing machinery, since that will make it easier for workers to spot problems and quickly correct them.
This leads to more efficiency for your business and less money spent on buying new equipment every time a problem happens.
At a company like Hershey, electrical technicians are used to help inspect and troubleshoot their snack food processing equipment when problems arise.
The company is ranked as the top chocolate business in the United States with a 44 percent share in the market, according to the Statista website.
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Recycle leftovers back into the production pipeline
It is fashionable for many companies to be environmentally conscious by recycling used materials, but this strategy can also yield major results in maximizing efficiency in your company.
In order to accomplish this task, your manufacturing company needs to have systems in place that can detect waste that can be used again during production. This can include small chunks of leftover raw material that can be converted into useful items.
Summary
The methods described in this article can dramatically improve the efficiency of your manufacturing company. By reducing the amount of production waste, this will lead to lower costs across the board and a greater satisfaction for both your employees and customers.
