Within any manufacturing business, there is a fine line between increased production rates, quality issues, and rework. More than often, by increasing one you will ultimately increase the others.
This is far from desirable; however, there are ways in which you can increase your production rates while lowering rework, and you may be able to improve your quality along the way rather than watch your quality levels plummet.
Teach your employees
It is important to take the time to teach your employees a few highly critical lessons, which if then acted upon, will cut down your production times significantly.
The correct procedures to follow
It is highly likely that your engineers will know the fastest and most accurate methods of getting any projects completed while they are on the production line.
Having these procedures not only documented but also taught to your operatives will see that they are working at a far higher production rate than if they are left to try to work out a method by themselves.
How to use the equipment supplied
As regards health and safety, an employee must know how to work any machinery or tooling they are required to use. However, providing proper training can also aid an employee in the time that they take to complete their job role.
For instance, if they are working with heat guns like those available from heatgun.com, they should be educated in not only how to use it but also in the most advantageous temperature to set it at, how to either hold the heat gun or at what distance their components should be held away from the heat to get the best finish.
How to reduce rework
As any manufacturing boss, manager, and an operative will know, the cause of rework can happen anywhere on the line (or if down to component failure, before the part is actually fitted into place).
Teaching your production teams how to spot failures or possible rework before any product is completed will not only save your company money. Still, it will also mean that products to be reworked can be put aside earlier in the production journey.
It will also enable active measures to be put in place in weak areas on your production lines, whether in providing additional employee training or addressing how any machinery is working or being loaded or unloaded.
Carry out routine machinery servicing and maintenance
With this in mind, you should ensure that your machine (and tooling) is well-serviced and maintained.
This will not only prolong the life of the machinery or tooling in question but will keep it running at its optimum speed and efficiency while providing quality work for your products.
Although as a manufacturing boss, you are probably too aware of the damages that downtime causes to your profit margins.
Setting aside time out of normal production hours for any servicing or maintenance to be carried out will help you see less downtime due to machinery issues while not costing you any additional downtime due to machinery or tooling being out of circulation.
