Many of us make personal New Year’s resolutions—most surrounding healthier lifestyle including exercise and eating better—but have you considered making New Year’s resolutions for your manufacturing business? Some key considerations for 2019 should include, am I leveraging my existing equipment to it’s full potential? Are my employees trained to maximize safety and capacity? Am I continuing to seek out new efficiencies to increase my bottom line?
Let’s break these down individually.
Leverage Your Equipment
Each piece of equipment in your facility was designed with operating capacity, capabilities, and tolerances. Over time, the realized output will diminish as wear occurs. When tolerances expand, typically one of two things happen: either the quality control goes down or throughput must be reduced to keep a closer eye on quality and patches. In 2019, make a commitment to evaluate your equipment and make necessary repairs and maintenance, beginning with your most critical machinery. While the cost may be difficult to bear, the opportunity is immense.
Train Employees
As your organization grows and new equipment is added, schedule in time for training, retraining, and cross-training employees. While specialization is valuable, stopping the line because of a vacated position or a sick employee can be disastrous to project delivery and ultimately cash flow for the business. Either design an in-house training schedule or hire a training coach who can help develop a program to maximize employee safety and efficiency through engaging, effective training.
Continuous Improvement – Efficient Operations
Are you committed to operating efficiently, or are you committed simply to continuing operations? While the previous two resolutions feed into an efficient organization, the concept of operating efficiently covers a wide array of opportunities. From reconfiguring a workspace to a reformed workflow, to equipment replacement, steady investment in your business can provide long-term benefit. Consider replacing worn or bottleneck equipment with new or leased state-of-the-art equipment. Technological advancements in manufacturing equipment provides better visibility into equipment maintenance issues before they become problems, higher capacities, and tighter tolerances. Not only are you able to process higher volume with less waste, your customers will appreciate the tighter tolerances and faster delivery.
While New Year’s is just another day in your business’ calendar, consider it a time of reflection and planning to be a different—a better organization in 2019. If you’re considering new equipment purchase or lease, contact us today for attractive financing options to help you acquire the equipment your organization needs.