How to improve manufacturing production efficiency?
Stoppages, problematic production lines, low production output, complicated labeling process, and never-ending struggles with running the business – the lack of manufacturing production efficiency has many faces. If you want to boost your company’s productivity and performance, here’s how to do it.
What is manufacturing production efficiency?
Production efficiency is an economic term. It describes a level at which a company can’t produce more without lowering the production level or quality. Simply speaking, an organization reaches its production efficiency maximum when it can’t produce any more goods without wasting resources, time, and money.
How do you measure production efficiency?
Another thing is how to correctly measure the efficiency of production. The most common metric is OEE – Overall Equipment Effectiveness (OEE). It’s a performance indicator. It shows the percentage of planned production time that is fully productive.
What are the norms of OEE? A score of 100% would be a perfect production line – it’s nearly impossible to get there, though with low downtime, quick production, and smart monitoring software you can get to the score of around 60-80%.
How to improve the manufacturing efficiency? Get to the roots of the problem
It may sound easy, but how exactly do you find what is the main cause of the lack of efficiency and low performance of production lines in your company? We have an answer. It’s just one word, maybe two — production monitoring.
Let’s take a step back and explain in the first place what production monitoring is.
Production monitoring allows manufacturers to gain a comprehensive, detailed view of the situation in the factory. Production monitoring is supposed to help boost a company’s productivity and efficiency by ensuring that production lines work appropriately, and quickly solving urgent problems before they cause unwanted stoppages. Sounds good? Yes, we know that!
Now that you know the best solution possible, let’s get to the details and create a plan to boost your production efficiency.
Improving manufacturing efficiency step by step
Don’t waste materials and resources
How to stop material waste? Firstly, focus on the way your products are designed – reducing the amount of material that has to be wasted during the process is a huge part of increasing production efficiency. Get to know such terms as value engineering and DFM – Design for Manufacturability.
And when it comes to resources, monitoring the usage of energy/water/time (it’s also a resource) is crucial. That’s why you need software – for savings.
Get organized
Additionally, waste products should be immediately disposed of, whether through proper recycling measures or with the help of mobile container trucks designed for transporting contents such as waste, recycling, or other items with ease. Lastly, the production plan should be clear and, most importantly, achievable.
Implement modern production monitoring software
How to improve your factory’s production efficiency? Invest in modern production monitoring software enabling you to monitor your performance with live OEE ratio calculation, as well as with smart video support allowing you to detect any problems just in time.
Be proactive
Instead of constantly solving problems, work proactively to manage production and avoid possible failures. Preventive maintenance is a key to creating a well-performing, efficient factory. Don’t wait until something breaks – avoid the stoppage instead of chaotically resolving it in a hurry.
Take a look at your data
Firstly, you have to have the data. That’s why we highly recommend investing in software allowing you to collect it. Analyze the data daily to see where the stoppages came from, why the breakdowns happened, and what you can do to improve it, boosting manufacturing production efficiency.
