Improving efficiency and productivity in an industry is a great way to grow profit, maintain advantage and competitiveness. You need to look for key aspects to invest to achieve that result.
But first you need to see what’s working and not at your production and measure results and productivity, so you can establish performance indicators and desired results.
Let’s look at methods and actions to improve your operations and be more productive and efficient.
What is production efficiency?
Production efficiency is the moment when your production reaches the maximum of output without wasting time, money, and resources. That means, the optimal efficiency is producing as much of one good as it can without lowering production levels.
Usually, what is used to measure efficiency on production is the Overall Equipment Effectiveness (OEE), that evaluates the percentage of time is being productive.
On other terms, a perfectly efficient process will result in a 100% OEE. Which means producing the maximum of goods without losing time and resources.
But that is only one way of evaluating your business, you also need to set specific KPI’s that contemplate your operation. Recording data is fundamental to improve productivity and see how your performance is doing overtime.
Methods of improving efficiency
Basically, there is three main ways of improving efficiency, they are: having better processes and production, advancing technologies and factory standards, and finally training personnel and getting better equipment.
So, let’s look at some options of improving efficiency that can be help throughout the production process.
Examining process and workflows:
You need to look at your operation and define parameters of production and see what can be improved and what is working fine. Also, it’s important to alter possibilities and register the effects to see if there are better results.
Then, you compare those options and changes to see what’s best for you. That will reveal what can be done and which changes are worthy applying effectively.
Reduce waste:
You must avoid waste of materials, time, and resources. So, the first process of evaluating your production must look for aspects that are resulting in waste.
That can be employee hours, energy consumption throughout the operation, materials lost. So, you can consider the use of recycle materials or sell the ones not used instead of dumping.
Train your employees:
Employees must be able to handle equipment and take the most out of it. Without training is possible to not produce as much as possible and even damaging those items and equipment’s.
Another point of training is reducing safety issues, because employees know how to handle the dangerous equipment and won’t make as much mistakes as untrained professionals.
Invest in smart equipment and modern process:
New and smart tools are a good way of improving efficiency and getting better information on how things are developing. As data becomes more and more important in every industry, you need to keep up with times and modernize your process.
New software and technologies can automatize functions and free time of employees to focus on more strategic aspects and also give insights from recorded data.
In sum
Improving efficiency is the result of an organized process. If you look at operation and establish KPI’s you can trace what can be better and act upon it. Also, it’s important to not waste resources and maintain production time.
