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Top Four Tips To Improve Efficiency In Your Manufacturing Business
Improving efficiency within your organisation can reduce your operational expenses, helping you allocate extra funds to your business to hit long-term goals.
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By Luke Trickett
From quality assurance to providing your workforce with the latest equipment, manufacturing business owners have a lot on their plate. And if you’ve noticed that your organisation isn’t performing as it should, it might be time you revisit your processes. As maintaining efficiency is crucial and pivotal to your business’s success.
In this blog, we’ll explain why efficiency is important within your industry and how to scale a manufacturing business through four helpful tips.
Why manufacturing efficiency is essential in business
Before we can learn how to improve manufacturing efficiency, let’s first understand why it’s important. By investigating how your business could perform better, you’ll unlock greater potential for profit and productivity and maintain healthy cash flow all year round.
Improving efficiency within your organisation can also reduce your operational expenses, helping you allocate extra funds to your business to hit long-term goals. You’ll also be able to anticipate potential issues and minimise workflow delays.
1. Minimise waste
Waste is a regular part of the manufacturing process, but that doesn’t mean your disposal practices can’t be improved. Most manufacturing businesses throw away their waste rather than try to discover better ways for reuse.
According to Skip The Tip, a waste management organisation, manufacturing companies are the top contributors to commercial and industrial waste, making up 24.5% of the total waste disposal.
Poor waste disposal can also hurt your financial resources, especially if you consistently order more than you need. Reduce your waste and save in the long run by accurately ordering the supplies you need to complete your products.
Take a look at the waste your employees leave behind during the manufacturing process and determine if there are ways they can be repurposed in your business or used to create other products. Also, consider partnering with organisations that will pay you to take your wasted materials to be recycled. This way, you can efficiently deal with waste and earn more for your business.
2. Carry out regular inspections and stay organised
Other than waste, another thing that’s all but guaranteed within the manufacturing industry is equipment breakdown. Constant equipment breakdowns can hurt your production line and even force your workers to stop, resulting in inefficiencies within your business. Manufacturing business owners must have effective measures in place to minimise breakdowns and improve business efficiency, such as routine maintenance.
Regular maintenance of your machinery ensures that you’ll be able to identify potential faults and have them repaired before they lead to complete breakdowns. Simplify the process by preparing a checklist of all areas of your machinery you need to inspect.
It’s also a good idea to get on top of your machinery’s servicing and ensure someone is scheduled to inspect the equipment monthly. Make a note of the dates of all inspections, plus a record of the parts and how often they were repaired. This can help you determine when a part needs to be replaced in the future.
This also applies to the other tools and equipment your workers use to produce your products. If a worker can’t find the right tool at one step during the manufacturing process, delays and low-quality products can result. Make an effort to develop a system that keeps your worker’s tools and equipment organised, visible, and within reach at all times.
Manufacturing companies are the top contributors to commercial and industrial waste, making up 24.5% of the total waste disposal.
3. Make your employees a priority
Company morale plays an important role in the efficiency of a manufacturing business. Business owners need to reward their employees and show appreciation for their hard work through bonuses, practical training, investing in new equipment or other incentives.
Research has shown that organisations that put effort into rewarding employees experience higher productivity levels. In fact, according to Apollo Technical, productivity increases by 31% when employees are happy, while more than 40% of employees agreed that if they were recognised more often, they’d perform better.
Hiring the right staff for the job is also important for improving business efficiency, as these people will be responsible for assembling your products. Ensure all staff members have received the highest training and possess the right qualifications.
4. Invest in smarter technology
Most of your manufacturing operations will already be using industry-standard technology, but if you want to make a difference in your business’s efficiency, it might be worth looking into technology that can be integrated into your existing systems, such as automated business manufacturing software.
There are many advantages to automating your business, from reducing expenses and admin resourcing that would have been spent on manual data entry to minimising time-consuming errors and reducing operational delays.
Many areas of your business can be automated, from tracking your employee's workflow to supplier quotes and communications with clients. But in our experience, the area that can benefit the most from automation is your bookkeeping.
From paying bills on time to issuing invoices correctly, automating your business is essential to saving on cost and time. And in the case of the manufacturing business, Thor Building Products, it even helped them have an edge over the competition.
Thor Building Products became a client of Marmalade, a unique invoice payment solution that helps manufacturing businesses manage their upcoming payments by providing early access to funds from unpaid invoices. Access to these funds allowed the business to purchase new products and expand, which according to managing director Steele Ryan, helped the company grow by 17% in a year.
Source: https://www.apollotechnical.com/employee-recognition-statistics/
Marmalade — your answer to better efficiency in business
Learning how to grow a manufacturing business starts with the right tools. Marmalade is a one-of-a-kind invoice payment solution that manages all aspects of invoicing. With Marmalade, you’ll be able to manage all your payment processes in one place, plus turn unpaid invoices into capital.
Simply select the invoices you want early payment on and pay a one-off fee between 3-5%, Marmalade then transfers the funds to your nominated account within 24 hours. Marmalade makes accessing your money simple and hassle-free. We want to empower manufacturing companies to get strategic with scaling their business so that they can enjoy long-term success. Get started by creating a free account with Marmalade today.