A processing plant faces daily challenges to maintain productive results. The processing plant manager is responsible to tie up all loose ends between employees’ performance and their productivity, and set higher and higher goals and standards to make the plant more productive. Many studies have been done to see how this can be done and the one factor that seems to make a processing plant less productive is a lack of organization and untimely scheduling. Another factor is lack of well-designed industrial engineering planning.
Plant managers function in multiple capacities of management. They are expected to be constantly vigilant of employee productivity, product quality, production goals and output, and workplace safety. These are just a few of the duties that combine plant management with the facets of an industrially engineered processing plant.
What Makes Your Processing Plant Less Productive?
Whenever a processing plant is not as productive as it could be, it is usually a combination of factors like lack of coordination between production staff and management, poor time management, and inefficient processing equipment. These are just a few of the things that can drive down production numbers. Look into what could be causing winkles in your schedule and why these seem to happen regularly.
How to Make Your Processing Plant More Productive
To make your processing plant more productive, a monthly review of production output is necessary. View production output as a revelation into where the greatest losses of productivity occur. For example, when new equipment is installed, it should be ergonomically coordinated to the overall plant processing workflow.
Look for gaps in time from process start to final wrap or shipping. These gaps may slow down the process by taking too much time to complete each phase of processing. Plant processing equipment plays a large role in how efficient and productive the processing plant could be.
This is especially important in plant processing with 24/7 continuous production schedules. Does the processing equipment meet the manufacturing standards for comprehensive processing and safety? For example, a processing plant that relies heavily on highest quality processing should consider features like sanitary strainers for food, flavors, pharmaceutical, and beverage processing. By using a SaniClean Strainers sanitary or side inlet strainer for the process, product quality can increase, assuring a more productive processing cycle.
Plant processing should maintain a Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) manual so the actual daily plant processing remains uniform and reduces production errors. A SOP manual should be updated as equipment or processes change. To make a processing plant more productive, it’s necessary for remedial retraining programs for staff and also continuous review of equipment efficiency.
Making your processing plant more productive is a balancing act of keeping up with equipment, changes in schedules and identifying where your inefficient processes are, and then making the necessary updates to optimize output. What results is a continuous process improvement strategy that can yield results for many years to come.
If you liked this article, here are others you might also find interesting:
- Tips for Improved Productivity and Output
- Leverage OEE for Continuous Improvement
- How do You Measure Manufacturing Resource Productivity?
