The manufacturing industry is caught between the past and the future right now. While machinery is coming along in leaps and bounds, it’s still important to remember that in order to keep your employees happy you’ve got to cater to their needs.
At the same time, we have to focus on productivity. Streamlining manufacturing and factory processes isn’t just a cost-cutting exercise, but it’s a way for you to make sure your employees are working to the best of their ability and are happy doing so. What can we do to get on the right track?
Anticipate Supply And Demand
This is crucial for brand new manufacturers. The big temptation we all have is to purchase more than we would need right now to anticipate more demand. But whether you are purchasing more lifting shackles, conveyor belts, or storage, if there’s no need for it right now, you could find yourself out of pocket in the short-term, and possibly in the long-term.
Anticipating supply and demand is about adequate financial forecasting. But it’s also about ensuring that the quality program is in place. This allows you to address productivity by providing the correct products, making them available when they are needed. It also helps you to decrease waste.
Become More Analytical In Your Production History
Using production history data can help you to forecast your future. You can use technology to analyse and measure how much you have used in terms of material as well as what you’ve thrown out. It also gives the opportunity to assess how much time you’ve spent on a specific process. When you tally this up with the bills of materials, you may see where you can save time and money.
Utilising Big Data
Analysing your enterprise data allows you to improve your operations in numerous areas. When manufacturers implement solutions by harnessing big data, they start to analyse the productivity and profitability trends across the business but also ensure that their corporate data is mined sufficiently.
Improving Communication Between Teams
In a factory environment where so many individual components need to work together, communication can be the bridge that improves so many different areas. Integrating synchronised communications between the production team the engineering team, as well as the sales, can help to improve the products and get them out onto the market faster.
From the perspective of the sales team, they can spot trends and buying patterns which means that they can send this back to you so you can cover the demand. But to get to this point, there’s got to be regular communication between all the departments. Integrating communication software such as VoIP can speed up the process sufficiently.
Streamlining the factory processes is about bringing it into the modern-day by using specific technology and analytical processes, but it’s also about understanding the importance of where your business is right now. Many companies don’t have the finances to invest in more progressive equipment which means that you’ve got to focus on the morale of the employees.
The employees’ happiness is crucial but when you start to improve communications it also makes for a more streamlined business which makes your employees’ job more manageable.
