7 Ways to Streamline Your Manufacturing Operations

Every manufacturer has a unique process for production. Thus, the solution to getting higher profits and quality is different for each company. Still, with the ultimate goal of staying competitive, everyone can benefit from streamlined manufacturing operations, with benefits that include less waste, faster production, improved quality, and lower costs.

Following are 7 ways to streamline your manufacturing operations:

1. Define KPIs

Key performance indicators (KPIs) are metrics for meeting your company’s goals and objectives. Since certain pieces of information will be more useful than others, focus on the ones that are most relevant and can be measured company-wide. Dashboards are a good way for teams to visualize information and stay focused on KPIs.

2. Focus

If you have a quality or production issue with a particular product, that’s a good place to begin efforts to streamline. Take a close look at the product’s entire lifecycle, not simply the things you feel you can directly control, to find possible issues.

3. Capture data

To get to the root of a product’s manufacture, you’ll need to track and combine accurate data for its entire lifecycle in real time. For tracking, monitoring and controlling activities on your factory floor, a manufacturing execution system (MES) is a useful application.

An MES that captures machine-level data can help streamline manufacturing operations. Using MES data, you can ensure efficient equipment operations. When collecting data throughout the manufacture of a product, each team has a role to play.

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4. Utilize sensors and PLCs

If you’re not using sensors and programmable logic controllers (PLCs), they can be added to machines to get a picture of the entire production process. Sensor data helps analyze how a piece of equipment is functioning over a particular timeframe. Used together, PLCs can combine large data points with the sensor data to characterize the workings of a machine. Operation managers can use the information to define parameters and performance indicators for every machine.

5. Make data accessible

An integration system can be set up that connects all the data points to one centralized dashboard that transmits information in real time. If you set that dashboard as a web-based application, your teams company-wide can access it to monitor manufacturing processes in real time.

6. Use data-driven strategies

Streamlining manufacturing operations is more straightforward if you use data-driven strategies. When you sum up all the data you collect, you can base future decisions on the results. Modern manufacturing depends on decisions that are based on accurate, timely data.

7. Integrate ERP and MES systems

The next step is integrating your MES and business management/enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems. Doing so translates activities on your factory floor into financial reports. A product like Autodesk Prodsmart can facilitate this process, providing real-time data and production reports so you can understand what needs to be changed to improve production. You can also get insights into the financial status of your company for decisions about other strategies.

While most manufacturers are taking steps to apply data-driven strategies to their production lines, return on investment can still be elusive. Integrating accounting and production systems, plus real-time data exchange, helps improve the overall operational efficiency of your company.

By enhancing machine-to-machine communication and capturing and sharing data, manufacturers can improve efficiency and quality, foster innovation, improve profits, while streamlining manufacturing operations.

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