If you’re like most executives who lead complex manufacturing operations, you are constantly looking for ways to improve productivity. Yet you may not always have enough time, data, or skilled resources to continually dig for opportunities to increase capacity and/or drive down production costs.
When the Process Excellence Network asked about companies’ primary measure of success for operational excellence (OpEx), the top response was increased throughput/efficiency, followed by cost savings, and then top-line growth. However, the respondents named cost/budget limitations as their greatest OpEx challenge. The research report notes that though budget concerns are not a new challenge, more survey respondents than in prior years say they expect budgets to be flat or down.
There is likely untapped value—such as underutilized resources or inefficient procedures—within your current production processes, equipment, and workforce. If you make it a priority to analyze data and observe processes firsthand, you’ll find bottlenecks, unexpected sources of downtime, and unrealized capacity. Armed with this knowledge, you can make the improvements that drive greater revenue while lowering your operating costs. And you may be able to do so without significant capital investments.
The benefits of uncovering that untapped value can be significant. For example, Integrated Project Management Company, Inc. (IPM) partnered with a large baked goods manufacturer to identify throughput improvements. Sessions with plant management and line workers uncovered 90 unique items that would drive improvement. The low-cost, immediately actionable opportunities led to $850,000 in line-hour savings annually. That amounted to a margin increase of more than 2 percent. If those line-hours went toward increased volume, it would open up 25 percent more capacity, resulting in top-line growth of $21 million.
Download the complete article to learn about:
- Collecting and analyzing loss, throughput, equipment, and capacity data.
- The challenges of digging for untapped value and the benefits of overcoming those challenges.
- Improving dynamic decision-making.
- Building a culture of continuous improvement.
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