How to improve factory production efficiency? Pay attention to these 8 key points

Lean production

TECHNICAL ARTICLE

9/27/20244 min read

Under the premise of ensuring product quality, the essence of corporate competition is the competition between efficiency and cost. How to continuously improve production efficiency is not only the key to the sustainable development of enterprises, but also the fundamental way to reduce manufacturing costs.

Of course, we must strictly operate according to the process standards (SOP). In order to enable operators to better understand the production process and improve work efficiency, the upper and lower processes should be subdivided, and the principles of continuous improvement of the process should be used to find the most reasonable way of operation in a feasible way.

When operating, the following questions should be considered:

Why: Is it necessary to do this action? Is there a better way?

Where: Why do it here? Is there a more suitable place?

When: Why do it at this time? Is there a more suitable time?

So, on the issue of how to improve productivity, the author combines experience to put forward several opinions:

1. Improve our working habits

Maintain a good sitting posture to make the body and the workbench more reasonably combined, which is conducive to operation.

Try to use both hands to engage in production work during the production process.
Within the operating range, try to keep the movement short to improve time utilization.
Improve employees' production skills (conduct period training and skill assessment).

2.Reasonably allocate the workplace and pay attention to the placement of raw materials

The movement path of the hands and arms should be within the normal working area (the range that the hands can reach in a normal sitting position).
For work that must be done with eyes, normal vision should be guaranteed to be able to see the status of the work point clearly.
Tools and materials should be placed in a fixed position so that they can be easily taken at one time. The most commonly used and reused materials can also be placed nearby and placed in the order of material assembly.

3. Tools and equipment

Tools and equipment should be placed where they can be easily taken.
Design and use simple auxiliary tools or tooling to make production smoother, more reasonable and convenient for operation.

4. Material handling

For easy access, a good design should be made in advance.
Consider arranging some tooling designed according to the principle of gravity to deliver materials to the place of use.
Pre-set and classify the materials and parts required for the next process.

5. Save time

Concentrate on work, which can improve the problem of manual hesitation or temporary stop. At the same time, it can also avoid safety accidents, such as burns from blowing, injuries from objects, etc.
Analyze our actions when working, which actions are necessary and which actions can be combined, so as to reduce steps and shorten time.

For example, grinding: check whether everything is OK during positioning, and whether everyone's operation during grinding is correct, to reduce rework and save time and personnel production load.

6. Encourage employees to self-check and mutual check

In production management, generally speaking, as long as the quality is good, the efficiency is naturally high. The return of defective products often affects the efficiency by more than 3 times. In previous production rationalization consultations, it was found that general companies spent a lot of resources on the first and last pieces, full inspection, and special inspection, but ignored the self-inspection and mutual inspection of employees.

"Quality is manufactured", how to implement this sentence to the execution level?

1.Employees should conduct self-inspection during the production process

Confirm the processing quality of parts and components of the previous process;
Confirm the processing technology, process requirements and processing quality of the current process;
Confirm the quality of the finished product delivered to the next process.

2. Employees conduct mutual inspections. There are generally two quality management principles

Downstream processes have the right to make index claims against upstream processes
When the first process provides products to the second process, if the second process detects defective products, for example, 10 products are provided, and 9 are found to be qualified and 1 is unqualified by the second process, then the second process has the right to make index claims against the upstream process. The claim index here is quite amazing and increases geometrically.
If the downstream process fails to detect defective products, there should be corresponding penalties
After the first process provides products to the second process, if the second process does not detect the existing defective products and flows to the third process, the third process will deduct the bonus of the second process...

By designing a series of systems, employees can do self-inspection and mutual inspection, which can not only greatly improve efficiency, but also greatly reduce quality inspectors.

7.Establish a flexible production organization system

Establish a flexible production organization system to enable all personnel to develop on the premise of ensuring the completion of production tasks with good quality.

The function of production organization assigns the overall task to each unit or individual, and establishes a relationship with both division of labor and cooperation.
Arrange workstations according to the flow chart, determine the spacing and complexity according to the amount of operation time, configure the instruction book workstation, do a good job of material input, defective product identification, and tool-fixture-instrument equipment placement workstation.
Determine the balance of workstations and the smoothness of the assembly line, arrange employees reasonably according to their proficiency, so that the production line does not pile up materials, and leave a certain amount of space, so that some people will not be too busy and some people will be idle, which will not lead to missed operations.
Replace employees in positions, reasonably allocate personal expertise, and know who is faster and who is slower.
Pay attention to the management of new employees, designate specialized personnel responsible for guidance, clarify responsibilities, and conduct regular inspections and confirmations.
Determine effective production capacity and qualification management, divided into internship period, independent period, autonomous period, proficiency period, level period, and development period.
The power line must be clear: employee (complete tasks, report problems) - team leader (execute tasks, handle problems, report results) - squad leader (execute plans, report production, handle problems) - director (monitor execution, summarize plans, and report results).
Create all-rounders, distinguish employees' strengths, pay attention to cultivation and use as well as staffing, and consciously cultivate in daily work.

8. Precautions

To achieve the plan and increase production, managers should pay more attention to:

The pre-production preparations should be sufficient (personnel, machines, equipment, materials, processes, and sites).
Control the pulling speed properly, keep the staff with a moderate sense of urgency when working, and don't relax.
Confirm the output in time and fill in the kanban.
Control defective products and correct them in time. If the correction is ineffective, stop working and find another suitable person or find the correct way to operate.
Defective incoming materials and defective products produced should be confirmed to be returned, replenished, and replaced in time.

There are many reasons that affect production efficiency, such as "congenital deficiencies caused by acquired disorders" in design and development, and insufficient materials in procurement leading to production line changes or shutdowns waiting for materials. It is not too difficult to grasp the main contradictions of the problem and solve them in a targeted manner.