8 formas de mejorar la eficiencia de producción en su planta de fabricación

How Can Production Efficiency Be Improved? 11 Proven Methods to Incorporate

No matter how large or small your manufacturing plant is, efficiency and productivity relative to your capital investment are the keys to maintaining your competitive edge. But improving production efficiency isn’t a one-time fix — it’s an ongoing process. 

By making small tweaks to production management, employee management, and operational processes, your organization has the potential to yield great returns. 

Learn proven methods, including enforcing a computerized maintenance management system (CMMS), to improve production efficiency quickly.

How To Improve Production Efficiency

Production efficiency, also referred to as manufacturing efficiency, focuses on how well resources are used to produce an output. By comparing the actual output to the potential output within a given timeframe, management teams look at the amount of resources (time energy, or raw materials) used to determine efficiency. 

If production efficiency is low, it’s time to implement changes to help:

• Improve operational and production efficiency with better processes

• Increase production in a factory environment with new technology and standards

• Improve manufacturing productivity from a personnel and equipment standpoint

Implementing and enforcing the use of CMMS software may be the best way to increase production efficiency. Paired with ten additional methods, your organization will be well on its way to improved efficiency.

Measure Your Productivity 

Before you can start working to improve your manufacturing plant’s productivity, you must first measure its current level of productivity. Use the following tips to ensure your measurements are accurate enough to implement a plan:

Take a Multifaceted Approach 

Simply measuring just one method will not get you complete productivity data. In fact, using just one method could be detrimental to the overall plan and approach.

For example, when companies measure productivity only by how much output they get per labor hour, they often cut labor hours only to increase costs elsewhere. 

By measuring multiple factors (output per labor hour, capital utilization, materials, etc.), you’ll get a clearer picture of what productivity looks like at your plant.

Using and integrating CMMS software with other software can help this full picture come to life.

UpKeep is the #1 CMMS used by maintenance and reliability teams to help run operations efficiently and effectively. Request a demo today.

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Collect Enough Data to Make Good Decisions

Collecting good data is key, but be careful not to go overboard. Sometimes, “enough” data is better than “perfect” data in that a perfectly accurate and complete data set may cost more than it's worth.

Be sure to get enough information with enough precision to make good decisions, but don’t waste your time or break your budget collecting too much data that is “perfect.”

Look at Commonly Overlooked Factors

Sometimes, factors that affect your production efficiency may not be readily obvious or measurable. 

For example, the work of your facility’s engineers might have a dramatic impact on your productivity, but it's too difficult to measure exactly how that’s accomplished. Often, the measurements used are highly subjective, but they’re better than having no measurements, in this case. 

By working these commonly overlooked factors into your productivity index and taking them into account, you’ll be better able to measure production efficiency, even if the actual numbers aren't precise. 

Calculate Production Efficiency

To most accurately understand your facility’s production efficiency, you must compare the actual output rate on the floor with the standard output rate. The standard output rate is the work done over a specific, standardized amount of time. 

For example, you might program a production line to create 400 finished products in one day, or 100 of a specific part per hour. This is your standard output rate.

However, the actual production rate is almost always different. For example, your technology might only produce 320 products in one day, or create 75 parts per hour.

Use this calculation:

Production efficiency = (actual output rate / standard output rate) x 100 

(320/400) x 100 = 80

Production efficiency for this production line is 80%.

11 Ways To Improve Production Efficiency 

#1: Examine Your Workflow

Take the time to examine each part of your facility’s workflow to highlight areas that diminish efficiency. 

You might notice inefficient workers, systems in place that could use improvement, or updates that could be made on technology.

UpKeep’s maintenance reports software helps keep track of analytics and reports during this process and helps ensure each stage of production is adequately monitored. 

Here, manufacturing teams can review reports to identify what should remain the same and what might be eliminated to ensure the workflow is operating efficiently. Consider developing a hypothesis after reviewing reports, altering specific parameters and measuring the effects to help create a clear picture of what changes should be made.

#2: Identify and Eliminate Bottlenecks

Every process has bottlenecks – a point in the production process where capacity is limited, causing delays and reduced efficiency. Unfortunately, this can occur at any stage of a production process, so looking for bottlenecks while examining your workflow is crucial.  

Bottlenecks often come in three forms:

• Production line bottlenecks

• Supply chain bottlenecks

• Employee bottlenecks

When production is slowed from any of these points, efficiency is diminished. 

#3: Modernize Your Business Approach

When workflow bottlenecks are identified, distribute the information to members of your management team and task them with developing ideas for improving the variables.

With a constant stream of ideas, teams are likely to work towards an optimal solution. 

With UpKeep’s CMMS solutions, teams can engage in ongoing streams of communications to keep ideas all in one place and collaborate efficiently and effectively.

#4: Invest in Employee Training

According to Gallup’s State of the American Workplace report, only 25% of manufacturing plant workers feel engaged at work. When employees are disengaged, their productivity is lowered due to a lack of motivation.

Most employees want opportunities to expand their skills and advance in their careers. 

To engage team members, invest in them and their skills. 

Modern technology offers a plethora of ways to make ongoing employee training enjoyable and productive, and the payoff for both your team members and your organization will be worth it.

#5: Identify and Reduce Waste

Lean manufacturing is a production system that focuses on reducing waste for continuous process improvements. To achieve this, manufacturing teams must apply lean principles, tools, and techniques for eliminating waste from a manufacturing cycle.

Many lean manufacturing techniques may take years to fully adopt, but the benefits can be felt from the early stages.

#6: Optimize Inventory Management

Parts inventory could quickly become a major setback for a production team, so staying on top of spare parts is very helpful in achieving production efficiency. 

To avoid lengthy breakdowns or expensive shipping costs, an organized and updated parts inventory is critical. 

Using a digital solution to manage your inventory helps ensure you don’t have too many parts to adequately store and that you don’t run out of necessary spare parts to perform timely maintenance and repairs. 

With UpKeep’s inventory management software, you can oversee everything from parts consumption to purchasing and more.

#7: Invest in Smart Equipment

Your team can only be as productive as the tools you provide them, so introducing advanced machining tools in key production points can make a big difference in production efficiency. 

Doing so can improve production uptime and prevent unforeseen breakdowns. You’ll likely find the revenue saved and generated will quickly find the next piece of advanced equipment you’ll want to invest in.

#8: Develop Realistic Expectations

With all of the new resources available to upper and middle management teams for improving production efficiency, it can be easy to overestimate what’s possible or practical in the short term.

Start with realistic goals that you can easily set into motion and use the progress you make to show your team what’s possible in the future. 

#9: Stay Organized

Organization is a way of life more than it is a system or set of tools. Eliminating red tape while preserving the flow of information is a good jumping point. 

Simultaneously, cutting down on things like production floor transit time — the time wasted when a worker has to walk across the manufacturing space for a certain tool — is key to making production more efficient. 

#10: Create a Culture of Collaboration

Your manufacturing floor is at its most efficient and productive when everyone communicates openly and collaborates when moving towards a goal. By leveraging mobile technology and the many tools included, your team can be involved in a solution-oriented conversation and might drive worker satisfaction and production to a new level. 

#11: Invest in Preventive Maintenance

An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure and the same goes for your production line. It may seem like a work-intensive process to run an ongoing preventive maintenance schedule, but having a mission-critical piece of equipment breakdown can result in revenue-killing downtime.

Investing in preventive maintenance software helps prevent asset breakdowns before they happen. With access to time and cost tracking, full maintenance reports, easy scheduling, communication, reports, and more, UpKeep’s intelligent and intuitive tool can help.

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Avoid These Common Productivity Mistakes

Sometimes, poor productivity or efficiency results from simple mistakes that can likely be easily fixed. Implementing CMMS software may help minimize these common mistakes:

• Poor time management – Maintenance technicians spend about 35% of their time actually completing a maintenance task, which can quickly lead to subpar production efficiency.

• Overworking employees – Asking too much of your employees can quickly become detrimental. Instead of pushing for overly optimistic timelines, evaluate your capabilities and set realistic expectations.

• Disregard for safety – Poor safety practices may result in costly accidents and significant amounts of downtime, cutting into productivity. Implement safety practices like regular training and equipment inspections to keep personnel more aware of safety importance to lower the risk of catastrophic accidents.

• Poor communication – Communication between team members or departments can hinder productivity. Using communication technology may improve productivity by up to 25%.

Increase Production Efficiency: Important Questions to Consider

What Factors Prevent Us From Hitting Our Production Targets?

The answer to this question will help you know where to start looking for ways to improve. It’s also one of the most difficult since the obvious answers are likely only surface-level symptoms. 

For example, if a piece of equipment is producing more defects than expected, it may be because it hasn’t been properly maintained. However, the reason for that might not be on the shoulders of your maintenance technicians, but instead on process-level issues that keep them from doing their job efficiently. 

What Incidents of Downtime Do We Experience?

Some estimates indicate that about 5% of production is lost to unplanned downtime, so it’s worth checking to see how many significant equipment downtimes have recently occurred. 

What Are the Greatest Sources of Downtime?

When you have an idea of where your equipment downtime is occurring, figure out which source has the greatest impact. Generally, this means calculating which types of incidents add up to the most lost time. 

For example, if a significant source of downtime comes from a signal machine, that clues you to look at how the machine is performing, maintained, etc. If downtime occurs from preventive maintenance, that could hint that preventive maintenance should be optimized. 

When you identify your sources of loss, it’s time to resolve them. You might need to start monitoring specific equipment or improve the preventive maintenance performed on it. 

Which Actions Would Produce Lasting Results?

As you list actions you can take to improve equipment uptime and productivity, take time to look at those that will produce long-term results. Sometimes an action might yield a short-term return but cost extra in the long run.

If improving a machine’s production efficiency would cost more than it saves, it's likely not worth implementing.

Additional Tips for Production Efficiency Improvement

Some final practical tips and tricks for improving your productivity include the following:

• Improve inventory and materials traceability with barcodes and scanning systems. 

• Delegate project management roles rather than micromanaging them yourself. 

• Automate important production systems. 

• Perform FMEA to target the most assets for preventive maintenance. 

• Standardize important processes.

• Set alerts for inventory orders and account for lead times.

• Handle bottlenecks in a way that eliminates them rather than shifting them.

• Hire and train key employees in advance. 

• Keep looking ahead and adapt to keep up.

• Measure progress and make changes as needed. 

Using CMMS is a great way to log data and track progress when it comes to the maintenance team’s productivity. Utilize the provided solutions to track progress and monitor increased production efficiency. Equipment uptime should increase and defects should decrease.

UpKeep: Providing Numerous Solutions to Effectively Improve Production Efficiency

Making small changes throughout a manufacturing company can yield great results with the right solutions at play. 

UpKeep offers countless products and software to easily implement proven methods to increase production efficiency and experience many payoffs. 

As the number one CMMS used by maintenance and reliability teams, UpKeep’s features are tried and true:

• Asset Management – Helps increase asset utilization and reliability and decrease downtime

• Parts & Inventory – Helps better manage inventory and costs to minimize unnecessary spending and unplanned downtime due to inventory shortages

• Preventive Maintenance – Helps take asset operations from reactive to proactive

• Integrations – Streamlines maintenance and asset operations by integrating many helpful pieces of software

• Analytics & Reporting – Helps create data-driven decisions

Are you ready to work on increasing production efficiency? Get started with UpKeep to effectively implement these many proven methods today.

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