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How to Reduce Machine Downtime

How to Reduce Machine Downtime

Machine downtime can have a big influence on everything in your manufacturing process. In fact, not only does it affect the manufacturing process, but it can take a toll on your business operations as a whole.


If you’ve experienced losses due to machine downtime, you’re not alone! Many companies around the world lose billions each year due to downtime. Machine downtime is an unintended reduction or halt in a production process or machine. There are numerous reasons why this can happen, but the main question is, how can you reduce or even avoid machine downtime?


We have outlined five key steps you can take to address machine downtime systematically to ensure your processes run optimally and effectively. Watch the video below to learn how you can reduce the risk of machine downtime in five simple steps.

https://youtu.be/Jm-d9YArBx8

 

Categorise the reasons

Start by either giving your machine operators a logbook or an Excel spreadsheet. Then over a 24 hour, week-long or month-long period, categorise when it stops, and what happened. They may use descriptive language to start with, so you’ll need to process them into categories such as filter changes, tooling problems and other machine-related problems.

So, capture the data from your operators first, then categorise and organise the various issues. From that, you can also quantify the number of downtimes for filter changes, versus the period of downtime for being low on materials. Based on these quantities sort them from high priority to low, and figure out what to focus on first. Go through them one at a time, eliminating and tackling the issues you’ve found.

Get to the root cause

Once you’ve categorised and prioritised what issues you’re going to address and in what order, you need to understand what the root cause is.

So, if it’s downtime for an unexpected filter change – use a methodology like the Five Whys. Ask, for example, “why did it take two hours to do a filter change”? The answer may be that the filter was in maintenance and had to be requested, and there’s a whole process around that. So the next “why” is “why is there such a lengthy process for requesting a filter for maintenance”?

Keep on drilling down the “whys” to ensure any solution you come up with, addresses the real underlying issues. Make sure that it’s not likely to happen again. If you just resolve the most obvious question, you’re likely to only come up with a solution that’s just a sticking plaster, which won’t work in the long term.

Monitoring

Take the example of replacing the filter. After looking at some of the issues as to why it took so long to get a replacement filter, the solution may be to have a storage of spare filters lineside, rather than in maintenance stock, so the process is quicker. The next step would be to start monitoring data and collecting data on your machine, so you can predict when a filter change is going to be needed in the future.

There’s a number of different ways to do that. A simple way might be to take a measurement on the machine, maybe a temperature or a pressure, at this start or the end of every shift. Use an Excel spreadsheet to plot over time, and use it to understand at what point you need to make a filter change. rather than waiting until the machine tells you it needs doing.

Use data to help you to be more proactive, either using a simple method like a spreadsheet or alternatively, a more fancy method such as using a sensor. Log it over time in an automated dashboard, using some software with rules that tell you when to do things.

Training

Whatever lessons that you learn from using these methods, make sure you get the operators of those machines on board with that. Train them in the processes and actions required to keep their machine running as optimally as possible.

You can use a number of different sources such as taking advice from the service engineers or the manufacturer of the machine to using any kind of internally developed techniques.

Monitor trends, make sure your machine operators are as knowledgeable on them as possible and that they understand the consequence of the methods used.

Preventative maintenance

The machine manufacturer will probably have given you some suggested scheduled maintenance tasks to do. You need to either make sure that they’re on a support contract and are coming in and doing that, monthly, six-monthly, 12 monthly, or whatever the period is.

You should put some kind of fool-proof internal preventative maintenance schedule in place to make sure that either the machine operator or your maintenance guys are coming in and doing these tasks before it gets to a state that the machine shuts down or hits a warning or alarm telling you something needs changing.

Like I mentioned previously, do that proactively. Do it at the end of the week or on the weekends or any other machine downtime so it doesn’t impact the productivity of the machines.

Summary

So the five suggestions for reducing machine downtime are:

    • Categorize the things and prioritize the things that are causing machine downtime.

    • Identify the root cause of each of the issues.

    • Collect some data and monitor the machine going forward to understand what things you can learn from the machine, to tell you when to when you need to do things.

    • Keep your operators trained on as the processes change and make sure they know exactly what they should be doing.

    • Keep proactive and do predictive maintenance and preventative maintenance to make sure that any downtime is scheduled and won’t impact productivity.



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Ways You Can Improve Your Machine Productivity

Ways You Can Improve Your Machine Productivity

Ways You Can Improve Your Machine Productivity

There’s little worse than having a slow production process. You can easily talk to unproductive employees, but slow machines are a different story altogether. Do you know what you call a process that has one thing slowing it down? A bottleneck.

In order to run a successful manufacturing process, you need to look at possible bottlenecks that might be slowing down other processes in your production line. Though bottlenecks are common, they aren’t commonly found unless properly searched for. So, what do you do? You look at all the factors and behaviours that might give you an indication of where the bottleneck is located.

This is especially important if the bottlenecking machine plays a key role in your processes! Watch our video below to find four suggestions on improving your machine productivity and having a smooth-sailing production process.

Look for the bottlenecks

There’s an amazing business manufacturing-related book about the three constraints called The Goal by Goldratt. It was written in the late 80s in the form of a fable. There’s a guy who’s a manufacturing manager having big problems with low productivity. He’s also the leader of the scout troop. One Sunday afternoon he takes his troop out on a hike. The fastest kids of the troop are at the front of the line, the slowest guys at the back.

He stands at the back of the line looking at his scout troop stretched out for over a mile. He’s thinking of ways that he needs to stop that and bring them all back together. So, he has the idea that, rather than the fastest guys at the front who are getting further and further ahead, why not put the slowest guy at the front of the line, to set the pace for the entire troop. Then something amazing happened. The people behind him wanted to go faster, so they took stuff out of the slowest guys backpack so that he could go faster and as a result, they could all go faster.

So, that’s basically the theory for looking for bottlenecks in your factory. If you’ve got a process that’s at full capacity and can’t go any faster, there’s no point spreading your focus around and speeding up other areas of the factory. They’ll get faster and faster, but they’ll have nothing to do because you’ve got an area of the factory that’s a bottleneck that can’t keep up with that.

You should, therefore, base 100 per cent of your effort on, finding the bottlenecks. Look for areas where there’s excess work in progress. Look at places where there’s excess downtime or, an interesting one, where people have got weird workarounds outside of the process, to overcome some of these bottlenecks.

Reduce the Workload of the Bottleneck Assets

Using exactly the same principle of the goal story, look for ways to take stuff out of the “backpack”.

If you’ve got a machine and you’ve identified it as a bottleneck in your process, look to see what the really core things are that only this machine can do. Anything extra, make sure you take it away from that area of your process.

So, if you’ve got any debearing or cleaning processes mixed in there, just take them out. Get someone to manually do that afterwards or buy another cheaper machine to do that before it goes in. If you get them out of the bottleneck area as soon as you possibly can, you might be able to free up an extra 10 or 20 per cent of that machine’s availability, for doing the core function that only that asset and that machine can do.

Look at Machine Upgrades

Once you’ve identified your bottleneck and reduced its workload so it’s only doing essential stuff, what can you do to improve its efficiency even more?

Even in machines that are only two or three years old, sometimes the rate of change in technology means there are much more efficient motors, more efficient methods of cooling or lubrication.

There be some simple upgrades available from the machine manufacturer, to give it an extra five or 10 per cent worth of efficiency. If that’s a bottlenecked area for you, that could mean, an extra 10, 20 per cent output of your product. So, speak to your service engineers for your key machines and see what upgrades are available and what they could give you.

Increasing Capacity

If there aren’t upgrades available, if it’s that bottlenecked area, look at increasing capacity.

If you bought an extra one of those machines, what would that let you do? Would that let you double your output? If it’s a bottlenecked area it should give you a big impact. If you double it, it’s probably not going to be the bottleneck anymore and somewhere else further down the line will become the constraint.

So, just before going down that route, try to get an understanding of what will be the next constraint and the next bottleneck. Decide what actions you can take and what it will cost to get the throughput that you need all along your production line.

Summary

So the four suggestions for improving your machine productivity are:

  • Identify what the bottlenecks are in your factory.
  • Look at ways to reduce the workload from those critical path assets.
  • Speak to your supplier about any upgrades.
  • Look at increasing the capacity.

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Improving Production Visibility for Successful Processes

Improving Production Visibility for Successful Processes

  • Assets – putting a simple traffic light system to see how well they’re running.
  • Products – get some updated visibility as to where they actually are in your process and tell you customer about it.
  • People – understand who needs assistance, extra training, look at issues in their work area.
  • Process – look for idle downtime, understand the reasons and cut it down to improve your lead time.
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Unleash the Power of Digital Manufacturing

Download our free Digital Transformation Starter Kit to set the gold standard for operational clarity and excellence.

There is also a feature we’re developing which is going to be based on meeting the standard time for a process and all of the delivery schedules. Tascus will send out notifications to a supervisor when actual times are starting to lag behind standard times. They can jump in, understand what’s going on and resolve the problem straight away.

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Process

Optimise The Process

One thing that often gets overlooked when improving efficiencies in manufacturing plants is what happens in between manufacturing operations.

You might have a very efficient machine running at a high OEE, and have optimised your labour activity.

Often the next opportunity for efficiency improvements is to work out what is causing downtime in between operations. So as a manufacturing order moves through the factory, how long is spent idle waiting to start the next process in the manufacturing routing?

We’ve had some customers who’ve managed to cut their lead time in half just by analysing what issues were causing orders to sit idle between several manufacturing processes.

Track & Visualise The Entire Process

They did this by tracking the manufacturing order start and end time at each stage, then classifying the reasons for it being held up before starting the next process.

They put that data into a pareto chart using a spreadsheet and then focused on resolving issues that caused the most delays and disruptions first. Often it’s 20% of issues that are causing 80% of delays.

At the end of that exercise, they cut their lead time in half, from eight weeks to four weeks.

In terms of customer service, that’s a massive competitive advantage if you can deliver in half the time that your competitor can.

 

Summary

To summarise, there are four areas that you can increase the visibility of the production process:

  • Assets – putting a simple traffic light system to see how well they’re running.
  • Products – get some updated visibility as to where they actually are in your process and tell you customer about it.
  • People – understand who needs assistance, extra training, look at issues in their work area.
  • Process – look for idle downtime, understand the reasons and cut it down to improve your lead time.

Unleash the Power of Digital Manufacturing

Download our free Digital Transformation Starter Kit to set the gold standard for operational clarity and excellence.

A more advanced way would be to connect directly to the machine, or attach sensors to it. As a result, your manufacturing manager in the office or overseas can see the information straight away. He will then understand what he needs to focus on, as opposed to having to ring someone up or having to walk around, before focusing on what needs to be done.

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Products

World Class Order Visibility

Another way to make a big impact is improving the visibility of your products as they go through your factory.

A lot of companies take a customer order, process it, but it goes into the factory and then it just enters a big black hole. It reappears at some point in the future, ready for dispatch, with no updates in between. This leads to frustration and lots of manual chasing.

When you place an order with Amazon, you get update emails as your order is getting processed, picked, dispatched and due for delivery. If you can move towards offering that level of service to your customers, it’s going to give you a huge competitive advantage.

Track Your Products

A simple solution is to track of the works orders as they move through your factory. Identify the key processes in that a product goes through during it transformation into finished goods.

Tracking products can be done easily with:

  • A spreadsheet
  • An ERP / MRP system
  • An online dashboard (like Trello – see above)
  • Shopfloor data capture software

Having a solution like this could then be integrated with customer alerts. For example, emailing customers to tell them which stage their product is at and is X days from dispatch, would bring a brilliant level of service and would really set you apart from your competitors.

People

Establish Standard Processes

In all manufacturing businesses, there are production operators with vastly different levels of expertise working in processes that you expect to produce products of a standard quality, consistency, and at a good level of productivity.

Establishing standard working processes using visual work instructions, product routings, and standard operating procedures will help you to train new hires, and to establish best practices across the business.

Calculating standard times for each process is critical to ensure you can accurately cost jobs, and track production efficiency.

Track Efficiencies

Once you have established standard processes and times, you need visibility into how effectively each production operator performs.

Low efficiencies may flag up that they need additional training. It may also signify issues with the manufacturing process itself – often tooling or fixturing may need to be redesigned. Without tracking, some people may be struggling but they aren’t vocal, and don’t flag issues until you specifically ask them.

Tracking can be done with Time & Motion studies, although they can be time-consuming. or with shop floor data capture systems which can track, flag and alert actual times vs standard times. Some systems even flag using an Andon light, or send out email notifications.

We’ve been developing features in Tascus that can help, including sending out notification messages to the managers or supervisors. For example, if there’s some kind of delay in the line stop, they can send that request out straight away and get assistance rather than having to go around searching the shop floor for their supervisor.

There is also a feature we’re developing which is going to be based on meeting the standard time for a process and all of the delivery schedules. Tascus will send out notifications to a supervisor when actual times are starting to lag behind standard times. They can jump in, understand what’s going on and resolve the problem straight away.

Process

Optimise The Process

One thing that often gets overlooked when improving efficiencies in manufacturing plants is what happens in between manufacturing operations.

You might have a very efficient machine running at a high OEE, and have optimised your labour activity.

Often the next opportunity for efficiency improvements is to work out what is causing downtime in between operations. So as a manufacturing order moves through the factory, how long is spent idle waiting to start the next process in the manufacturing routing?

We’ve had some customers who’ve managed to cut their lead time in half just by analysing what issues were causing orders to sit idle between several manufacturing processes.

Track & Visualise The Entire Process

They did this by tracking the manufacturing order start and end time at each stage, then classifying the reasons for it being held up before starting the next process.

They put that data into a pareto chart using a spreadsheet and then focused on resolving issues that caused the most delays and disruptions first. Often it’s 20% of issues that are causing 80% of delays.

At the end of that exercise, they cut their lead time in half, from eight weeks to four weeks.

In terms of customer service, that’s a massive competitive advantage if you can deliver in half the time that your competitor can.

 

Summary

To summarise, there are four areas that you can increase the visibility of the production process:

  • Assets – putting a simple traffic light system to see how well they’re running.
  • Products – get some updated visibility as to where they actually are in your process and tell you customer about it.
  • People – understand who needs assistance, extra training, look at issues in their work area.
  • Process – look for idle downtime, understand the reasons and cut it down to improve your lead time.

Unleash the Power of Digital Manufacturing

Download our free Digital Transformation Starter Kit to set the gold standard for operational clarity and excellence.

So, how do you get yourself into the know?

 

[/et_pb_text][/et_pb_column][/et_pb_row][/et_pb_section]

Check out our video below on the ways you can improve the visibility of your assets, products, people, and processes.

Here’s the 4 areas to improve visibility that I outlined in the video:

Assets

Identify Your Bottleneck Assets

So, the first area where there’s a quick win for improving production visibility is your assets. You may have some large assets or machines in your factory that you’ve invested a lot in. If you have some way of tracking the status and the availability of those machines quickly and clearly, it will help you plan better to keep those assets available and at full productivity.

For example, if one of those machines is out of service for a period of time, it can help you to plan which way to route that product quickly. It can also help you to focus on where to put resources.

If you’ve got key assets that are performing slower or have stopped, you will know what to focus on.

Traffic Light System

A simple way to do track asset status is a traffic light system:

Green – Running a Full Capacity

Amber – Running at Reduced Capacity

Red – Stopped / Unexpected Downtime

The easiest way to update status is to have the operator fil in a spreadsheet. Set the colour of an ‘Andon’ traffic light next to the machine, so it’s visible on the shop floor.

A more advanced way would be to connect directly to the machine, or attach sensors to it. As a result, your manufacturing manager in the office or overseas can see the information straight away. He will then understand what he needs to focus on, as opposed to having to ring someone up or having to walk around, before focusing on what needs to be done.

Products

World Class Order Visibility

Another way to make a big impact is improving the visibility of your products as they go through your factory.

A lot of companies take a customer order, process it, but it goes into the factory and then it just enters a big black hole. It reappears at some point in the future, ready for dispatch, with no updates in between. This leads to frustration and lots of manual chasing.

When you place an order with Amazon, you get update emails as your order is getting processed, picked, dispatched and due for delivery. If you can move towards offering that level of service to your customers, it’s going to give you a huge competitive advantage.

Track Your Products

A simple solution is to track of the works orders as they move through your factory. Identify the key processes in that a product goes through during it transformation into finished goods.

Tracking products can be done easily with:

  • A spreadsheet
  • An ERP / MRP system
  • An online dashboard (like Trello – see above)
  • Shopfloor data capture software

Having a solution like this could then be integrated with customer alerts. For example, emailing customers to tell them which stage their product is at and is X days from dispatch, would bring a brilliant level of service and would really set you apart from your competitors.

People

Establish Standard Processes

In all manufacturing businesses, there are production operators with vastly different levels of expertise working in processes that you expect to produce products of a standard quality, consistency, and at a good level of productivity.

Establishing standard working processes using visual work instructions, product routings, and standard operating procedures will help you to train new hires, and to establish best practices across the business.

Calculating standard times for each process is critical to ensure you can accurately cost jobs, and track production efficiency.

Track Efficiencies

Once you have established standard processes and times, you need visibility into how effectively each production operator performs.

Low efficiencies may flag up that they need additional training. It may also signify issues with the manufacturing process itself – often tooling or fixturing may need to be redesigned. Without tracking, some people may be struggling but they aren’t vocal, and don’t flag issues until you specifically ask them.

Tracking can be done with Time & Motion studies, although they can be time-consuming. or with shop floor data capture systems which can track, flag and alert actual times vs standard times. Some systems even flag using an Andon light, or send out email notifications.

We’ve been developing features in Tascus that can help, including sending out notification messages to the managers or supervisors. For example, if there’s some kind of delay in the line stop, they can send that request out straight away and get assistance rather than having to go around searching the shop floor for their supervisor.

There is also a feature we’re developing which is going to be based on meeting the standard time for a process and all of the delivery schedules. Tascus will send out notifications to a supervisor when actual times are starting to lag behind standard times. They can jump in, understand what’s going on and resolve the problem straight away.

Process

Optimise The Process

One thing that often gets overlooked when improving efficiencies in manufacturing plants is what happens in between manufacturing operations.

You might have a very efficient machine running at a high OEE, and have optimised your labour activity.

Often the next opportunity for efficiency improvements is to work out what is causing downtime in between operations. So as a manufacturing order moves through the factory, how long is spent idle waiting to start the next process in the manufacturing routing?

We’ve had some customers who’ve managed to cut their lead time in half just by analysing what issues were causing orders to sit idle between several manufacturing processes.

Track & Visualise The Entire Process

They did this by tracking the manufacturing order start and end time at each stage, then classifying the reasons for it being held up before starting the next process.

They put that data into a pareto chart using a spreadsheet and then focused on resolving issues that caused the most delays and disruptions first. Often it’s 20% of issues that are causing 80% of delays.

At the end of that exercise, they cut their lead time in half, from eight weeks to four weeks.

In terms of customer service, that’s a massive competitive advantage if you can deliver in half the time that your competitor can.

 

Summary

To summarise, there are four areas that you can increase the visibility of the production process:

  • Assets – putting a simple traffic light system to see how well they’re running.
  • Products – get some updated visibility as to where they actually are in your process and tell you customer about it.
  • People – understand who needs assistance, extra training, look at issues in their work area.
  • Process – look for idle downtime, understand the reasons and cut it down to improve your lead time.

Unleash the Power of Digital Manufacturing

Download our free Digital Transformation Starter Kit to set the gold standard for operational clarity and excellence.

Improving Production Visibility for Successful Processes

What does it mean to have good visibility of your production processes?

Well, simply put, you need to know exactly what’s going on in your production process in order to make the right decisions when it comes down to the crunch. When companies don’t have sufficient visibility, collecting data will become a timely and tedious operation.

What’s more, the data they’re collecting is probably out of date. This means they either can’t make the right decisions, or they’re unknowingly making wrong decisions that could cost them money.

To save your time, money, and valuable assets, you can start by taking small steps towards improving the visibility of your production process. Once you’ve achieved this, you can start focusing on the right areas that need the most improvement, growth, and time.

To be successful, you need to be in control and in the loop of your production process.

So, how do you get yourself into the know?

 

Check out our video below on the ways you can improve the visibility of your assets, products, people, and processes.

Here’s the 4 areas to improve visibility that I outlined in the video:

Assets

Identify Your Bottleneck Assets

So, the first area where there’s a quick win for improving production visibility is your assets. You may have some large assets or machines in your factory that you’ve invested a lot in. If you have some way of tracking the status and the availability of those machines quickly and clearly, it will help you plan better to keep those assets available and at full productivity.

For example, if one of those machines is out of service for a period of time, it can help you to plan which way to route that product quickly. It can also help you to focus on where to put resources.

If you’ve got key assets that are performing slower or have stopped, you will know what to focus on.

Traffic Light System

A simple way to do track asset status is a traffic light system:

Green – Running a Full Capacity

Amber – Running at Reduced Capacity

Red – Stopped / Unexpected Downtime

The easiest way to update status is to have the operator fil in a spreadsheet. Set the colour of an ‘Andon’ traffic light next to the machine, so it’s visible on the shop floor.

A more advanced way would be to connect directly to the machine, or attach sensors to it. As a result, your manufacturing manager in the office or overseas can see the information straight away. He will then understand what he needs to focus on, as opposed to having to ring someone up or having to walk around, before focusing on what needs to be done.

Products

World Class Order Visibility

Another way to make a big impact is improving the visibility of your products as they go through your factory.

A lot of companies take a customer order, process it, but it goes into the factory and then it just enters a big black hole. It reappears at some point in the future, ready for dispatch, with no updates in between. This leads to frustration and lots of manual chasing.

When you place an order with Amazon, you get update emails as your order is getting processed, picked, dispatched and due for delivery. If you can move towards offering that level of service to your customers, it’s going to give you a huge competitive advantage.

Track Your Products

A simple solution is to track of the works orders as they move through your factory. Identify the key processes in that a product goes through during it transformation into finished goods.

Tracking products can be done easily with:

  • A spreadsheet
  • An ERP / MRP system
  • An online dashboard (like Trello – see above)
  • Shopfloor data capture software

Having a solution like this could then be integrated with customer alerts. For example, emailing customers to tell them which stage their product is at and is X days from dispatch, would bring a brilliant level of service and would really set you apart from your competitors.

People

Establish Standard Processes

In all manufacturing businesses, there are production operators with vastly different levels of expertise working in processes that you expect to produce products of a standard quality, consistency, and at a good level of productivity.

Establishing standard working processes using visual work instructions, product routings, and standard operating procedures will help you to train new hires, and to establish best practices across the business.

Calculating standard times for each process is critical to ensure you can accurately cost jobs, and track production efficiency.

Track Efficiencies

Once you have established standard processes and times, you need visibility into how effectively each production operator performs.

Low efficiencies may flag up that they need additional training. It may also signify issues with the manufacturing process itself – often tooling or fixturing may need to be redesigned. Without tracking, some people may be struggling but they aren’t vocal, and don’t flag issues until you specifically ask them.

Tracking can be done with Time & Motion studies, although they can be time-consuming. or with shop floor data capture systems which can track, flag and alert actual times vs standard times. Some systems even flag using an Andon light, or send out email notifications.

We’ve been developing features in Tascus that can help, including sending out notification messages to the managers or supervisors. For example, if there’s some kind of delay in the line stop, they can send that request out straight away and get assistance rather than having to go around searching the shop floor for their supervisor.

There is also a feature we’re developing which is going to be based on meeting the standard time for a process and all of the delivery schedules. Tascus will send out notifications to a supervisor when actual times are starting to lag behind standard times. They can jump in, understand what’s going on and resolve the problem straight away.

Process

Optimise The Process

One thing that often gets overlooked when improving efficiencies in manufacturing plants is what happens in between manufacturing operations.

You might have a very efficient machine running at a high OEE, and have optimised your labour activity.

Often the next opportunity for efficiency improvements is to work out what is causing downtime in between operations. So as a manufacturing order moves through the factory, how long is spent idle waiting to start the next process in the manufacturing routing?

We’ve had some customers who’ve managed to cut their lead time in half just by analysing what issues were causing orders to sit idle between several manufacturing processes.

Track & Visualise The Entire Process

They did this by tracking the manufacturing order start and end time at each stage, then classifying the reasons for it being held up before starting the next process.

They put that data into a pareto chart using a spreadsheet and then focused on resolving issues that caused the most delays and disruptions first. Often it’s 20% of issues that are causing 80% of delays.

At the end of that exercise, they cut their lead time in half, from eight weeks to four weeks.

In terms of customer service, that’s a massive competitive advantage if you can deliver in half the time that your competitor can.

 

Summary

To summarise, there are four areas that you can increase the visibility of the production process:

  • Assets – putting a simple traffic light system to see how well they’re running.
  • Products – get some updated visibility as to where they actually are in your process and tell you customer about it.
  • People – understand who needs assistance, extra training, look at issues in their work area.
  • Process – look for idle downtime, understand the reasons and cut it down to improve your lead time.

Unleash the Power of Digital Manufacturing

Download our free Digital Transformation Starter Kit to set the gold standard for operational clarity and excellence.

Defeating the Predictable: How to Detect and Prevent Manufacturing Mistakes

Defeating the Predictable: How to Detect and Prevent Manufacturing Mistakes

Preventable mistakes in the manufacturing process are frustrating and annoying for your customer. But, they are also low hanging fruit for business improvement.

When you have identified several mistakes that keep occurring in your manufacturing process or you have product returns from a customer, the next step is to resolve the issues and prevent the mistakes that caused those returns. By approaching this in a systemised way, you can create a big impact quite quickly.

Build a Team

Set up a team to address the mistakes in your manufacturing process, including:

  • A Customer Representative
  • Product Design
  • Manufacturing Operations
  • Quality

This ensures whatever solution you come up with, the customer will get what they want without affecting the product performance. By involving manufacturing and quality, you can come up with a solution that will work on the factory floor. You can also get buy-in from the entire operations team.

Identify Risks

The best place to start is understanding the knock-on effect mistakes made in manufacturing will have on your product. The fit, form and function of it when it gets used, or the safety of the product to the people around it. When you understand the risks, you can establish what level of things you have to do to reduce those risks to an acceptable level.

You can use a tool like a failure mode and effects analysis (FMEA). Sit down in a room and bounce around ideas. Come up with things that could go wrong, using past experiences or discussions with your customers. Identify what could happen and also, try to classify it into those categories of:

  • Safety-Critical
  • Fit, form and function
  • Visual defect

By understanding the risk, you’re better placed in the later stages of a redesign, to know what you need to do to reduce those risks to an acceptable level.

 

Root Cause

When mistakes happen, sometimes it’s natural to quickly jump to the obvious answer of why it happened. However, I think it’s always worth using a technique like the 5 Why’s, to drill down to the root cause of the issue and to find the underlying reasons for why it happened. This, as a result, makes it more likely that the issue will never recur. Also, you will probably discover that the root cause is creating other mistakes as well. Here’s a quick example. So, if an operator fitted the wrong component into a product we first ask, ‘Why did that happen?’ A – Components look quite similar and they’re in the same place on a production line. ‘Why are they similar and in the same place?’ A – They come from the same supplier and are placed in the same location by the line supplier when he brings them out to restock the line. ‘Why do they do that?’ A – Because that’s the quickest way to do it on his route. In this example scenario, if we’d focused a solution on the operator who picked the incorrect component, then we haven’t resolved the entire problem. By drilling down a few levels, we’ve started to understand what we need to do to address the problem in its entirety. We need to come up with a solution that also addresses the placement, the picking and the storage of components on the line. As a result, this will prevent the mistake from happening again.  

Redesign the Process

1. Poka Yoke

The most effective way to prevent mistakes would be to Poka Yoke (mistake-proof) the product or the manufacturing process. If you can mistake-proof, it means you’re eliminating the possibility that that mistake can ever happen again.

For example, to Poka Yoke a product, you could change a thread so it’s impossible to screw in the wrong component. To Poka Yoke the manufacturing process you could redesign the tooling or the fixture, therefore making it extremely difficult to fit the wrong components in the wrong place. 

2. Alert

If Poka Yoke isn’t possible, the next option for redesign is to Alert & Verify.  Using the previous example where there are two similar components that must be interchangeable, do something highly visual to alert the operator.

For example, put one component in a green bin and one in a red bin. At the point when the operator selects the component, make sure they have a visual alert that a component from the red bin must be used.

Detect and prevent mistakes in manufacturing process red bin screen

Alerting an Operator to Select the Correct Component Using Tascus

Another solution is to use a Pick to Light system, which automatically lights up the correct component to select. It can also be used to verify the correct component was selected.

3. Verification

There should be a verification immediately after the manufacturing process. Use functional test, visual inspection, or smart camera, to make sure a mistake has not occurred.

Don’t leave this verification until the end of the manufacturing process. The amount of re-work to strip a product right back, replace the components and repeat the manufacturing process is extremely costly and disruptive. So, putting a small, quick verification in immediately after the process is a much more effective way of ensuring no mistakes have occurred.

Performing a Visual Inspection using Tascus

Track Performance

Once you have implemented your redesigned process to prevent and detect mistakes, you want to know how effective it’s been. Identify a metric that’s an indicator of good product quality and requires low number of mistakes in the manufacturing process. Examples are:

  • Number of Product Returns (should start decreasing)
  • First Through Test (FTT) (should increase)
Track KPI's for detecting and preventing mistakes in manufacturing process

Automatically Track KPI’s Including FTT in Tascus

Start tracking daily/ weekly/monthly, to make sure the metric is going in the right direction. When you see the metric improving, the time and money you’ve spent redesigning the process is justified because it’s been effective. It may have saved your test time, rework and reduced costs of product returns. If you find the metric is not improving, it’s time to try another process re-design to try an alternative solution.

Summary

To summarise, there are 5 key steps for how to prevent and detect mistakes in the manufacturing process:

  1. Build a Team to address the issue
  2. Identify the Risks of the mistake
  3. Find the Root Cause
  4. Redesign the Process based on the root cause
  5. Track the Performance of the solution after you’ve redesigned your process

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How Can You Get Your Manufacturing Operations Team Working Remotely?

How Can You Get Your Manufacturing Operations Team Working Remotely?

You rely on your manufacturing operations team to expedite production orders, to ensure that targets are met and orders fulfilled. With paper-based production systems, it’s impossible for operations teams to manage work in progress, from home.


A Manufacturing Execution System (MES) enables your operations team to be just as effective remotely as when they are in the factory. In this article, we’ll look at the key features of an MES that allow operations teams to work remotely.


Instant Communication With Shop Floor Messaging


This means that shop floor operators can directly message members of the operations team at home when they need assistance for equipment problems, part shortages or process-related questions.


Real-time messaging lets an operator
get immediate attention from the right member of the operations team to get
their problem solved quickly, with minimal downtime.


Tracking Work In Progress


Production Status Reports show what stage each product is at, how long it has been there and if it is on track to be completed on time. This overview of Work in Progress helps operations managers see remotely, at a glance what is happening across a factory. This allows them to quickly identify and resolve issues that would have meant missed delivery dates.


Reducing Downtime


Downtime tracking and reporting let the operations team at home review which issues caused downtime in the last 24 hours. With this knowledge, they can quickly focus on resolving the top 20% of the issues that will cause 80% of the downtime.


Respond to Change and Quickly Update
Work Procedures


It’s going to be a time of rapid change over the next few months, so it’s critical to be able to change working processes fast. If your business is reliant on paper work instructions, each change is going to be painful to implement. An MES that uses Digital Work Instructions allows an engineer to change work instructions from home, then instantly publish edits to the entire workforce.


Improved Productivity


Moving from a paper production system to a digital one has the added benefit of increasing productivity which is vital at a time when productivity can plummet, due to staff shortages.


Summary


In the months ahead, there are going to be major changes to the business landscape and our working practices. We’ve been helping manufacturing businesses for over a decade to utilise technology to be more productive and to be more responsive to change.


Time Critical


We can have you up and running in a matter of days. This will allow your engineers, managers, and directors to work from home whilst production continues so that your business fulfills orders.



Monthly Pricing


Due to the urgency for manufacturers to get staff working from home, we are waiving our minimum term period until 2021. Our monthly license fee will allow you to set up remote visibility of your production line, without having to get a large budget approved and you can stop at any time.



How Can Manufacturers Work Remotely?

How Can Manufacturers Work Remotely?

Remote working has been popular with software companies and freelancers for the past 10 years, but it hasn’t really taken off yet with manufacturers. With the current global pandemic of coronavirus, most government advice is to remote work where possible. So, in this post, we’ll share our experience of how to shift to remote working with specific thoughts of how manufacturers can do it.

Who Can Work Remotely in a Manufacturing Business?

When deciding who can remotely work, it comes down to a set of decisions about what tools are available for the employee to carry out their job from home rather than in the office. It’s likely that anyone involved directly with production will not be able to work remotely, as they’ll be required to use equipment and materials within the factory. But of the remaining supporting staff, we’ll look at ways to help get them working remotely.

What Systems Do Manufacturers Need to Work Remotely?

  • VPN – ExpressVPN, NordVPN

A VPN system can give employees secure access to tools and data on the company network when working remotely, so this is going to be essential for most employees.

Anyone involved in Sales, Purchasing and Operations are going to need access to the ERP system to keep the business running smoothly. This may be accessed via the company VPN or using a cloud-based ERP system.

Operations and manufacturing managers
will need to review work in progress and make sure that production targets will
be met, and also keep an eye on productivity and downtime. A digital system for
controlling production will enable them to focus

It’s going to be essential in the
next few months to keep in close contact with leads and customers, and to make
the most of sales opportunities. So the sales department needs access to a CRM
system to log their tasks and progress towards sales opportunities.

Video conferencing tools are now well-proven as an effective way of running meetings. As they can be a bit stilted, just make sure you have a clear agenda and get each participant involved by asking clear questions.

Keeping track of ongoing projects is going to be key to coming out of this pandemic in a strong position. Modern project management tools help you to manage by results and promote team collaboration.

  • Team MessagingSlack

Messaging tools like Slack are great for keeping teams in touch with each other, but they can cause distractions. If you are using them, combine it with a policy of small relevant groups, rather than broadcasting notifications to the entire company. Messaging tools can work better than email for internal messaging as they keep the discussion related to projects and teams in a central place, rather than getting lost in an email inbox.