I’m not talking “Modus Operandi,” which is a fancy way to say: “what’s your plan to get stuff done”.  I’m talking about Manufacturing Optimization. 

It is all about efficiency, and by that I mean doing more with less. Less labor, less time, less materials, while still delivering a high quality product on time.

The Three Secrets to Improving your MO

1. Identify the key metrics
You need benchmark data so you know what realistic goals are, then track them and publish your performance along with a brief comment from time to time on how things are trending and how you compare with others, particularly your primary competitors. The best thing about this is that it is a system that develops a life of its own.

2. Measure it
Automatically, people start to think about improving things. Then the fun part, stuff begins to improve by itself. Once in place, the system just hums along and the benefits appear, because it has motivated people to think about it, and figure out what they can do to make it better.

3. Communicate it
So if you publish gross profit numbers, explain to people how what they do affects the numbers. Employees tend to start to modify their behavior as a result, and look more critically at whether a given purchase is even necessary.

Scrap and rework costs are a manufacturing reality impacting organizations across all industries and product lines.

Scrap and rework costs are caused by many things—when the wrong parts are ordered, when engineering changes aren’t effectively communicated or when designs aren’t properly executed on the manufacturing line.

No matter why scrap and rework occurs, its impact on an organization is always the same—wasted time and money. And while no one, especially an operations manager, wants to admit it, these expenses add up quickly and negatively impact the bottom line...

Common sense rules. We may not like them, but generally, they stand the test of time and should be followed. Here are 8 common sense rules related to inventory management published by Inbound Logistics back in 2007. They still hold true today. 

1. If you don' t know where you are going, no road will take you there. Enterprise resource management systems are designed to tell you about today' s inventory. With some work, you can also access information about past inventory. To manage inventory proactively, however, you must know projected inventory levels for the future.

2. Make what you can sell. An integrated Sales and Operations Plan will naturally take into account expected demand in its production plan. Inventory is not an independent variable - it is the direct result of demand and supply.

3. Sell what you can make. Too often, a disconnect exists between sales and marketing desires and the reality of production capabilities.

4. If you can' t sell it, stop making it. If demand for your product does not materialize, you need to identify that gap quickly to avoid a buildup of non-moving inventory. Numerous mechanisms can be put in place to identify such trends.

For tips 5 through 8 and more details into the other tips, click the button below to read the full article.

When fixing a downtime issue, make one change at a time.

Often, multiple changes are made at the same time, without individually checking their impact on the equipment. This makes it much harder to diagnose problems and evaluate the effectiveness of solutions.

It is essential to capture a reason and duration for each downtime incident to enable the team to effectively prioritize and focus.

Start simple, and make sure every reason is clear (when compared with other reasons) and describes symptoms (as opposed to attempting to diagnose root causes). Remove reasons that aren’t regularly used and add reasons.

From a recent article published by M4B Marketing:

When analyzing your sales performance consider the following: 

• Pricing changes eg. price increases or discounting
• Competitors – competitors entering or exiting the market
• New product or service launch growing sales
• New product or service cannibalizing existing product or service sales
• Customers moving between products or services
• Changes in customer demand eg. increasing or decreasing
• The segments and distribution channels you operate in

• Is the information captured correctly?
• Can everyone access the information?
• Is this an accurate representation of what’s going on across all operations?

Make your shop floor paperless and put systems in place that talk to one another and automatically pull and push data to and from your ERP so that you can look in one place for all the information you need to run your business effectively.

I realize it was just Mother’s Day, but I don’t mean your mother.

I mean... MOM- Manufacturing Operations Management, a suite of manufacturing applications designed to improve efficiencies, without the investment in a costly system.

MOM provides manufacturers with the ability to extend their ERP system by offering specific applications that will streamline their operations at an affordable price.

MOM Suite of Manufacturing Applications:

• Manufacturing Execution System (MES)
• Time & Attendance
• Labor Reporting
• Data Collection
• Dashboards
• Scheduling
• Shipping & Receiving
• Supplier Barcoding

So, I ask again… how’s your MOM? Contact Crossroads RMC to learn more.