Manufacturing Metrics: How to Improve Equipment Effectiveness and Reduce Downtime
Manufacturing Metrics: A Comprehensive
Guide to Reducing Downtime
Read this article to learn more about the various manufacturing metrics that will help improve equipment effectiveness and reduce downtime in your factory.
In the average 8 hour day, office workers are only productive for a portion of that. Imagine if your manufacturing metrics revealed that for 4 hours a day, machines were out in the parking lot smoking cigarettes. While this isn’t the case, it may as well be when your facility approaches downtime as a mere matter of fact.
Here are four ways to look at metrics differently to ensure that you’re consistently producing as much as possible.
Metrics that Improve Customer Service
When looking at your manufacturing cycle, it’s common to look only at the results that impact you and what you can see. Most of the metrics that companies use when measuring success have to do with profit, production, and streamlining waste. However, customer experience, responsiveness, and satisfaction deserve consideration.
The time it takes you to deliver to your customers is directly related to how happy they are with you and your products. The percentage of time your manufacturing process delivers on schedule needs to be measured. Consider this as a metric that directly relates to repeat customers.
You also have another factor to consider when manufacturing for your customers. The time it takes for you to produce something from the time it’s ordered needs to be measured. It should be regularly tweaked so that you’re constantly shortening your production time.
After that, you’ll need to switch your manufacturing line when producing your following product. You need to swap out tools and materials and reconfigure your system to build your following product. If you do this quickly, it’s easy to serve your next customer or make your next project easily.
Metrics for Improving Quality
When your production company manufactures things repeatedly over the years, you know that quality control is essential. Tools become dull, workers cut corners, and minor problems become routine. Unchecked, these issues grow from easy-to-fix mistakes to indelible parts of your production process.
Make sure you’re always working on your yield numbers. Be realistic about how many final products your facility produces that don’t have flaws and meet your high standards. Instead of lowering your standards to meet your limitations, work in raising your standards.
Consider returns to be a marker of customer satisfaction. Take an honest look at how many customers rejects you get. If 2% of your products are damaged or flawed, you may never hear a word from your customers. However, when you exceed some magic number with your customers, you’ll open a Pandora’s Box of constant returns flowing through your offices.
If defective materials are the reason you’re constantly getting returns, reconsider your supplier relationship. The percentage of high-quality materials that come into your facility to initiate your manufacturing process ensures you end up with a high yield and few returns.
Learn To Improve Your Efficiency
If you’re looking to have total control over your process, you need to think about improving efficiency. Your metrics should show how much of your product is produced over time. These are the internal metrics you shouldn’t have any reason to be short on.
Get numbers that give you a base reading on your throughput. If you don’t know this, it’s the simple metric of how much of your product is produced over time. Ten widgets a minute during a specific shift or 1500 widgets over a given week are easy-to-measure figures.
Think about your capacity to produce and how much of it you’re utilizing. When you reach something closer to this figure, you’ll be a more efficient producer. If you’re not manufacturing anywhere near your total capacity, figure out how to get there.
Every piece of equipment you own has its own “effectiveness” metric you must look at. This figure shows you how much availability it has, the performance of the machine, and the quality of the products it produces. This figure indicates how effective your equipment or your entire line is.
Lastly, it would be best if you produced on time. The percentage of time you hit your target when it comes to production needs to have a measurement assigned.
Metrics Make You More Innovative
When you’re looking at your numbers, they’re meant to drive the future of your business. If you’re not thinking about where you’re headed in the future, you’re going to struggle to compete with other companies in your industry. If you’re focused on becoming more flexible and innovative, you’ll have the chance to take on new tasks and work on new products as your business grows.
Think about the rate that measures how products are introduced fast new. This figure entails the design period, how long it takes to develop the product, and the manufacturing of the new product. This lets you know how quickly you can create and release new products into the market.
It would be best if you also understood how quickly you’re able to make modifications and changes to your existing products. If you need to design changes or modifications, they must be implemented from documentation to production. If you don’t have the figures on how long this takes, you risk making serious mistakes when you need to produce any augmentations or changes to your products.
If you can’t alter or change any products after they’re completed, you’ll be stuck when the market demands anything new from you.
Manufacturing Metrics Require You to Raise Standards
If you’re not focused on improving your manufacturing metrics, you’re going to waste time and money while spoiling your hard-earned reputation. If you want to get the most out of your manufacturing cycle, you need to think differently about how you’re measuring your time.
If you’re looking to improve quality all around, check out our guide to quality assurance.
How Can You Produce Better Metrics?
You need Epicor® Mattec, a manufacturing execution system. According to Epicor, “Epicor® Mattec MES collects data directly from equipment and operators on the shop floor in real-time, minimizing inaccurate and time-consuming manual data collection. Real-time insight helps you pinpoint critical issues, reduce waste, and improve quality and customer service. With the information in your hands “right now,” you can become proactive and anticipate and solve production problems before they happen. Everyone in the plant and throughout the business can take action to improve manufacturing performance.”