Many organisations want to get the most out of their assets for a variety of reasons from decreasing costs to enhancing sustainability or even improving quality and service. Maximising your assets is a key fundamental principle of manufacturing that can result in serious benefits for an organisation, including:
- Increased flexibility of supply to customers through shorter lead times and lower minimum quantities
- Capacity increases through getting more from your current assets can in turn allow an organisation to increase their sales (depending on marketing demand) or lower their cost base and increase margins
- Efficiency gains through maximising assets can have a significant positive environmental impact. More productivity means fewer inputs and energy usage leading to reduced waste and emissions
- Maximising your assets requires stability and therefore consistency which in turn, leads to improved quality, less rework and higher customer delight
A more effective and sustainable way to maximise your assets
The more traditional way to get more out of your assets is just to turn up the speed on the production lines, however, this can create problems. Even careful increases in speed can often lead to an accumulation at the bottleneck of your process leading to short stops. It can create extra wear and tear on your machinery which leads to additional breakdowns and maintenance, rapidly depleting raw materials and leading to more changeovers.
For a more effective and sustainable improvement in asset utilisation, organisations can increase stability through deploying Stable Operations ™ which can lead to capacity increases of between 15 and 30%. Increasing stability means that you have fewer bad days and more good days, and this leads to significant output benefits. Traditional thought processes encourage pushing for record output days, but this just increases variation and a yo-yo effect on the daily output – it’s best to strive for sustained improvement over time.
Designing a manufacturing system for success
By embracing Stable Operations™, teams start to look at process data from a variance-based perspective, using real-time process data instead of monthly plant performance to generate new improvement insights. It means setting and adhering to standard conditions which are based on data and process capability, enhanced by leadership-driven dynamics and effective daily reviews which are data led. This leadership process requires the team to provide action-orientated answers, not just questions and a laser focus from the team to eliminate process issues. This, in turn, creates a safe learning environment that doesn’t rely on hierarchy, drives accountability, and provides clarity to the wider business.
A smarter way to value the level of opportunity in your operation
Our Manufacturing Opportunity Assessment is a data-driven analytics tool that has been specifically designed to quickly quantify the size of the opportunity. In a matter of hours, we can pinpoint exactly where the areas of focus in your business should be.
Watch the video to find out more:
Author: Mark Johnson
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