No matter how large your business or factory might be, productivity is the most important element to maximizing profits. However, maintaining high productivity on the factory floor depends on numerous factors, from your employees to your processes.
So — what can your business do to improve your on-floor team?
- Set Your Baseline: Before trying to implement improvements to your team and processes, determining your baselines is essential. Measure your business’ current output levels for later comparison.
- Examine Your Workflows: Many workflows contain small inefficiencies that can add up to severely reduced productivity. Consider all the processes, technologies and employees involved in your production workflows to identify any slowdowns or bottlenecks. These can be as simple as communication inefficiencies or resource shortages. Once identified, your business can choose the appropriate actions to improve performance.
- Educate Employees: Continuous education is an often overlooked factor that can greatly improve employee performance. The manufacturing industry is constantly changing, as is your business, so education and re-education of employees on new and updated technology can improve efficiency and reduce risks. It’s also worthwhile to educate employees on how to troubleshoot equipment when problems occur. With this strong knowledge base, your employees are better equipped to keep workflows moving.
- Be Realistic: Unrealistic goals on the floor can hinder productivity. Employees feeling pressured to speed up production to meet a strict deadline will often take more risks, increasing the chances of producing a defective product or causing an accident. Additionally, unrealistic deadlines and workloads can reduce employee satisfaction, resulting in increased turnover and reduced productivity. By setting realistic deadlines, your on-floor team feels less stressed, improving their productivity overall.
- Update Processes: If any processes are identified as being inefficient, meet with the project managers involved in the process to pinpoint the most problematic areas and develop improvement plans. This could mean redistributing resources and employees, updating equipment or outsourcing certain steps to other departments.
- Improve Technology: In the manufacturing industry, employees are only as productive as their tools. Though the initial costs are high, modern machines more than make up for the cost in improved productivity. Some even offer more user-friendly interfaces and safety features to help keep systems running smoothly. With the best technology at their fingertips, your on-floor team can boost their output substantially.
- Focus on Organization: A lack of organization can waste time on the floor. Whether it’s a misplaced tool or a pile of disorganized work orders, the smallest mishap can disrupt workflows substantially. That’s why prioritizing organization on the floor is essential. Ensure that team leaders monitor workstations for neatness and reinforce the concept during training. This way, everything is in the proper place to keep things running smoothly on the floor.
- Prioritize Maintenance: The less businesses spend on maintenance and repair, the more downtime they tend to experience. That’s why maintenance is such an important issue for the manufacturing industry. Even new pieces of equipment require regular maintenance to keep things running smoothly. With well-maintained equipment, your on-floor team can continue work with minimal interruptions.
Maintenance Services for Industry
A well-maintained floor is a productive floor. Keep it that way with Global Electronic Services’ extensive repair and maintenance services for industrial equipment. We serve thousands of manufacturers worldwide and can help your business, too. Simply call or contact us to learn more at 877-249-1701.