Manufacturing productivity (11 tips to improve your performance)

1. Introduction
2. 11 tips for manufacturing productivity
3. Assess where you currently stand
4. Train and incentivise staff
5. Know your product(s)
6. Organise your materials and parts
7. Use suitable handling totes
8. Maximise the use of space
9. Troubleshoot and maintain machines
10. Cut down on wastage
11. Reduce downtime
12. Remember to be realistic
13. Prepare for the unexpected
14. Summary

Before you can decide how to improve your productivity, the first step is to measure your current output and identify any bottlenecks or “pain points” in your manufacturing operation.

This involves examining procedures, processes, technology, and the people tasked with bringing them all together. Other secondary points to consider include the lines and methods of communication and the resources available to drive improvements.

Also, ensure that any charges made are recorded alongside the observed or measured improvement, or otherwise, to ascertain ongoing improvement.

One of the most commonly overlooked ways to improve manufacturing productivity is training staff.

Depending on your industry and product type, chances are that your equipment and processes are constantly evolving in some aspect. It may be new product lines, technological advancements, or even legislative changes.

As such, training staff, even those who have been with you for many years, can help ensure best practices are followed more closely and ultimately improve efficiency.

Another factor that is overlooked is cross-training. Having multi-skilled staff can mean that if team members are absent (through sickness or annual leave), productivity is not impacted.

It can also help reduce downtime; for example, if one job is completed, they know how to proceed with the next required process and can help mitigate bottlenecks in certain areas, too.

Similar to training staff to operate different machinery or various processes throughout your manufacturing setup, knowing the actual products you are producing can also yield surprising results.

Manufacturing efficiency begins with knowledgeable staff who feel engaged and valued, a side effect of training, with the added benefit that it often leads to employee-driven improvement ideas.

This doesn’t need to be formal, classroom-style learning; supervised on-the-job training can be less disruptive while being just as effective.

The amount of money and staff time wasted due to a lack of organisation can be staggering.

This is particularly true if materials or components are stored at various points in the manufacturing process, with the time spent retrieving these items making up a significant portion of your costs.

Making sure your storage and warehouse facilities are well organised will improve the picking process, which can be further enhanced by using suitable parts or picking bins. Correx® picking bins, in particular, can also help maximise space efficiency at your premises.

The increased speed at which parts or components arrive at your manufacturing line will lead to increased productivity and help avoid delays and even production stopping whilst waiting for items. This is also true for reducing picking errors, which an organisation can help with.

A better-organised system can also quickly highlight stock shortages, preventing downtime.

Besides improving the picking and retrieval of your materials and components, the movement of these around your production facility, and even between different sites altogether, can also impact productivity.

It is essential that you use handling totes, such as those made from Correx®, not only to aid manual handling but also to ensure the safety of your operatives.

Using totes enhanced with suitable dividers can also enable more efficient movement of multiple items at once, aid quick visual stock checks, and eliminate wastage of parts or components damaged during movement, usually due to collisions within the tote, or from surface marking or scuffing.

Take a look at our full guide on the different types of dividers and inserts here.

Building on both picking processes and the movement of parts around your factory, maximising the use of space can be a surprisingly effective way to improve your manufacturing productivity.

The time employees spend moving between areas directly impacts manufacturing efficiency.

By rearranging your factory floor to put commonly used equipment or machines closer to each other, to keep of stock of parts or components nearer to where they will be needed, and make each trip as efficient as possible (e.g., move multiple items with a tote, and ensure picking errors are minimised through well-organised stock and part bins) can all have a big impact.

Ultimately, you may wish to consider rearranging your manufacturing floor layout to create a smoother workflow for components, products, and people.

Regular maintenance and troubleshooting of your machinery and equipment are crucial in maintaining and improving productivity.

This is also where it’s important to train and trust the employees who use these daily. They will be the first to spot an issue, and if they are familiar with the equipment, they can potentially fix it with minimal disruption.

Besides this, knowing the signs that something is not running well, or even at capacity, can be critical in avoiding larger problems. It’s far easier to keep a machine running through maintenance and care than it is to repair it once something has failed.

Every damaged component that can’t be used costs money. Every unfinished product costs money. Every item returned by your customers costs money and hurts your brand’s reputation.

It is therefore essential to protect items when being stored with picking bins and when being moved with handling totes.

Whilst it is also understandable that mistakes can and will occur, if this becomes too frequent, then getting to the root cause and identifying a fix is critical, either for training and recruitment, new processes, equipment, etc.

Most of the above points relate directly to avoiding manufacturing downtime, and there are several ways to prevent it.

For example, failing to maintain machines can lead to breakdowns that halt production lines.

Staff picking the wrong components, potentially due to poor organisation, can slow production whilst the correct items are found. Similarly, if components do not reach the production line in time, this can also cause a delay.

This is an addition to having multi-skilled staff who can be flexible and work across different sections of your manufacturing to help cope with bottlenecks in particular areas when required, or with planned or unplanned absences.

It is important to bear in mind that, ultimately, every minute production stops, you’re losing money.

Expectations from your customers, tight deadlines, and pressures from external factors, such as logistics and delivery times, can all distort targets and often make them unachievable.

In cases such as this, it’s important to manage expectations diplomatically and ensure corners aren’t cut, whether in safety or quality. This could lead employees to become demotivated, resulting in productivity worsening rather than improving.

As a result, once you have a full picture of your current productivity, set realistic goals that focus on the quality of output and punctuality, and don’t compromise safety.

Involving your employees and gaining their feedback on initiatives can help them feel engaged and valued, too.

Finally, being ready for peaks in demand can be critical to your productivity levels.

Whilst improved productivity obviously helps in meeting any challenges posed by an increased workload (which may be seasonal, due to unexpected product success, or a huge range of external factors beyond your control), failing to prepare can also hinder productivity.

If a backlog builds up in production, it can lead to demotivated staff; too much stock of materials or components held on site, reducing the organisation’s efficiency, and has an ongoing impact until the additional requirement is fulfilled.

This is again where efficient processes and multi-skilled staff using the correct equipment can be critical.

For further information on how to retrieve components or parts, as well as material handling totes and other products aimed at improving manufacturing productivity, please check out the guides section of our website.