When a manufacturing business needs to take on a larger than influx order of product—particularly around the holidays—the business might be tempted to work overtime and crank out as many products in as short a period of time as possible. Working faster means faster results, right? There’s no downside.
Unfortunately, that logic has been proven time and time again to be patently false. Working faster and increasing production rarely proves to be better for your business in the end, as it has shown to slow down the overall manufacturing process and actually increases the rate and risk of error. These inevitable errors will require often require pausing, halting or stopping production altogether in order to rectify the issue.
It might seem counterintuitive, but the best way to increase production while simultaneously decreasing cycle times is by decreasing the number of manufactured goods in production. Learning this extremely valuable process is something that NJMEP offer’s through the Lean Six Sigma program available to all New Jersey manufacturers.
Six Sigma is a program that actually offers several different, separate programs that are designed to reduce waste, increase productivity and raise your business’ bottom line. Excess waste can be extremely detrimental to a business, which is precisely why Six Sigma is designed to streamline as much of the manufacturing process for a business as possible. A slimmer, leaner business is one that will be able to operate at full steam while spending less time doing tasks that it had previously bogged it down.
In the case of Six Sigma’s Value Stream Mapping, this is a tool for manufacturers that accurately and easily illustrates their business’ flow of materials and other assorted information gathered from a production’s start to finish. This mapping tool is an efficient way for manufacturers to see exactly how their products are being created, step by step, and any opportunities for improvement that might reveal themselves along the way.
Additionally, Six Sigma also offers Value-Add versus Non-Value-Add Analysis, which is a tool that helps a business determine what is most important for their client, and then increase or halt the production of whichever products they do or do not want.
Finally, there is the 5S Program, which is short for “Sort, Set-in-order, Shine, Standardize, and Sustain.” While this might be a little bit of a mouthful to say aloud, this is actually a very important program that is intended to develop a more efficient and safer work environment for both the business and its employees. Risk of injury can be just as dangerous for a business as it is for a worker, so through a combination of improved safety, ownership of workspace and better maintenance, it can be easy to increase safety while simultaneously increasing productivity.
For more information on NJMEP and Six Sigma and how they can improve your manufacturing business’ bottom line, click below!