No matter your business, there are bottlenecks that can cause problems. Simplifying your process can reduce these inefficiencies. With the right tools in the hands of your employees, you can get a handle on the problems that are cutting into your bottom line.
Improve Software Connections
Check your software options to make sure that communication is easy and instantaneous. For example, you may have an employee who needs a particular component to finish up a batch of items. You may have an employee who’s building 500 projects and is running out of room to work because they have too many complete parts in their workspace.
Lead employees should be able to immediately order
- individual components
- a transfer to the next manufacturing step
- a completed parts pickup for transfer to storage
Such software could easily be stored on a working tablet. Once you’ve got communication set up, you can also use these tablets as a way to store photos, inspection reports and challenges for review at the next meeting with staff.
Practice Tool Maintenance
Get your maintenance team looped in so you can schedule maintenance with an eye towards avoiding breakdowns and down time. You may be able to get hand tools and critical electronics cleaned up and updated when key employees who use them are on vacation. You may be able to bring on a cleanup crew over long weekends so you can get the facility scrubbed up when everyone else is gone.
Expand Your Storage Footprint
Your current business may feed retail or you may run a B2B supply business. If you have any manufacturing going on in your business, you will need storage for your raw goods and your completed parts. Depending on where you’re located, in house storage may not be an option. Short-haul shipping services can reduce your need for more storage on site. Additionally, you may find that you can use a smaller vehicle to take small project batches to your off-site storage, making it easier for a long-haul vehicle to get larger shipments loaded for an extended transport. Check out the options on an excellent drayage blog for transporting your goods over short distances for local deliveries or long-haul storage and staging.
Create Staging Areas
In your existing facility, create staging areas where your employees can stack projects together. As your accounts payable clerk will batch up invoices before making a check run, your manufacturing crew can;
- consolidate metal parts for deoxidizing
- group wooden items for painting or heat treating
- batch clean gems or metal parts before putting them to work
If you are using an energy intensive tool, such as a paint room blower or an industrial oven for baking or heating components, the right staging areas can make batching items easier and more cost-effective.
Reduce Steps
Modern manufacturers need to hire people who can do multiple steps before moving the item on. Carefully study the working spaces of your most efficient employees. Monitor their need to engage in
- bending
- stooping
- stretching
- walking
Are there things you can add to their workstation to make their job simpler? Would they have an easier time of it if they could keep some inventory at their workstation, and how do they get the components they need to build their projects?
Managing the Change
Keeping your raw goods organized and your tools maintained can go a long way to avoiding delays and keeping things simple. Getting everyone trained on quality electronics that will travel easily from shop to office is key. Make sure that any electronic device that communicates your business data is
- secured and regularly updated
- protected from shop conditions, from shocks to dust to humidity
- easy to charge up at the end of the day
Conclusion
Making the implementation of this data as easy as possible is key to acceptance. Change is tough and unhappy people tend to slow things down; complaining is time consuming. As you start to see the benefits of these efficiencies, share them. Consider handing out a cash bonus or gift cards based on the projected efficiency gains from these simplifications to power up the buy-in of your staff.
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