The Challenge Series: The importance of understanding resource effectiveness.
In the challenge series, we delve into the most common challenges facing manufacturers today and how they can be solved. The fifth challenge:
How can I increase manufacturing output without having to increase headcount?
Are you a manufacturer with a challenge you would like our experts to solve? Get in touch here or share your challenge on LinkedIn / Twitter via #ChallengeLYNQ
The manufacturing challenge
The manufacturing business has become very successful, with sales busier than ever and orders piling up. The company doesn’t want to say no to new business, but the production facility has reached its limit of capacity. They face a decision, either:
- having to turn down new revenue or
- find a way to increase their production, within their current infrastructure.
This is where LYNQ MES can help.
Investing in the right technology will enable a manufacturer to work more effectively within the boundaries of their current resources. By using an MES solution, such as LYNQ, a manufacturer is able to identify where losses are occurring, in terms of time, money and quality, minimise these losses and hence maximise their outputs.
This frees up space in the production schedule without having to add more employees or stretch working hours. It’s all about identifying where unproductive hours are occurring, maximising the productive time and therefore making the most effective use of manufacturing resources.
Let’s take a look at an example.
An aerosol manufacturer was struggling to fulfil orders and keep up with business demands. The Executive Board had ambitious plans to grow the company and needed to be taking on new business in order to achieve this.
Something needed to change on the production line to cope with the level of demand.
The company implemented LYNQ MES. This enabled them to increase visibility into the production line, they were able to see exactly how long it was taking to manufacture a product, on which machine and by which employee. Through having access to this data, they were able to schedule production orders on the most efficient machines and maximise the volume they were producing.
This also allowed them to gain insight into their most profitable accounts (the orders where they were making the most profit from the products that were being manufactured). With this insight, they were able to prioritise those customers’ orders, ensure that they were taking care of their most profitable accounts and therefore maximise the revenue of their production facility. All while working within the same infrastructure and with the same resources that they had before.
The ability to collect accurate data from the production line enabled more informed planning and scheduling decisions. This meant that they were able to provide their customers with accurate delivery information and ensure that they were purchasing the correct amount of inventory, exactly when they needed it, minimising storage and raw material costs.
Satisfied customers mean more orders, and the reduction in costs also helped to improve the bottom line.
By using technology to digitalise manufacturing, the company were able to be confident that the production line could now keep up with the ambitious plans of the Executive Board.
LYNQ MES enables a business to plan, track, automate, analyse and optimise manufacturing operations.
By making the most effective use of manufacturing resources (employees and machines) a business can maximise its output, without needing to add to its current infrastructure.
