This post is provided by Jason Dirkham.
Your factory floor needs to be running at optimal capacity at all times. From having the proper staffing levels to meet production requirements to the best equipment integrations, you need to monitor everything that happens to ensure nothing is being overlooked. Failure to do so can have massive consequences for your business and put you at risk of losing everything you have worked hard to achieve.
Data Is Key
One of the best and easiest ways for you to ensure you know what is going on is to look at the data you hold. This is everything from personnel files to ensuring the right people are in the right places for each step of the process, to records of accidents, downtimes, productivity levels, and whether or not you have been hitting your KPIs. If you don’t know the answer to any of these, then you need to sit down and take a look at all of the data at your disposal and see how you can turn it from data into actionable effective decision-making to improve standards.
Preventative Maintenance
Poorly maintained systems and processes will only hamper your ability to meet production levels and quality checks. If you aren’t achieving consistency at the speed required, what is going wrong? Preventative maintenance of all equipment allows you to be confident that everything is working as it needs to be without you worrying about emergency repairs and breakdowns, as you will have a better idea of the condition of everything you need to have to work each day.
Updated Systems
Have you updated systems and software over the years? How do these all work together? If it’s not, seamlessly, you need to look at what is causing your problems and what systems you need to use to improve this. If people have to navigate tricky software protocols or your systems don’t work in sync, meaning things are being manually added, then you are likely experiencing increases in mistakes and longer turnaround times. So whether this is getting a completely new infrastructure in place, or using a MicroLogix 1400 for improved control functionality, look at what you need to make things work and put it in place.
Flow
The flow of your factory floor, processing equipment, and workers play a massive part in how effectively you operate. It’s the practical details that can make all the difference. If people are wasting time moving from one section to another, or your machinery and equipment aren’t in the right place, you are doing yourself a disservice. Take a look at how production runs and the flow of your workers to see where time is being lost and productivity is low, then see how you can improve on this to make things easier and more efficient for everyone.
Increasing production levels improving productivity, and becoming more efficient aren’t aspects to overlook; neglecting these issues can be detrimental to everything you are striving for. Make a point to continually assess what is and isn’t working and make the necessary improvements before it is too late.
