Measurement is an essential part of any production process. It helps you determine where you are and where you’re going. It’s estimated that the manufacturing industry will need 3.5 million more workers over the next decade, and measuring the effectiveness of the manufacturing process while adding new employees can be a daunting task.
With the industry growing exponentially, it’s essential that you can scale accordingly without losing out on efficiency and output. This article will focus on KPIs in manufacturing, how to measure them, and how to make informed decisions for your company’s future.
What Are KPIs in Manufacturing?
KPIs are used to measure the performance of a business. KPIs in manufacturing are specifically used to measure how well your plant is performing. These will differ by company and depend on your product, your workflow process, etc.
An example would be throughput time: How quickly does it take to move goods from start to finish? Another standard KPI is lead-time or changes over time: the amount of time it takes between when you begin production on one product until you have moved onto another product.
These metrics help businesses understand if there’s a bottleneck somewhere and where improvements need to be made.
This data can also help identify which processes work better than others by comparing them with KPIs like labor efficiency.
The data collected when measuring KPIs can help determine if there might need to be an investment into new machinery in the future, whether you should reduce inventory levels or focus more on quality control.
How to Measure KPIs
KPIs need to be measured meaningfully. This means they need to be specific, relevant, and timely for your company and industry.
The best KPIs are based on metrics like lead-time or throughput time because these directly impact how many units you can produce every day.
Tools to Help You Track KPIs
Versacall is a company that helps manufacturing firms improve their production efficiency by providing an integrated system that includes multiple efficiency tools inside a single interface. One of these tools is VersaCall’s visual management system which provides visibility into plant operations, streamlining shop-floor workflows and processes.
It also assesses KPIs such as throughput time to help identify where improvements need to be made so you can have a more streamlined approach in your plant, increasing productivity while improving quality standards.
Andon dashboards are the heartbeat of each production station or line. They display the status and current work for every machine and other key metrics like cycle time, which are color-coded to alert production personnel when a process is out of standards.
With all this information at their fingertips, workers can make better decisions promptly, so they do not lose any valuable cycles waiting on support or debugging problems themselves—saving both money and time!
Why Track KPIs in Manufacturing
Tracking KPIs in manufacturing can help answer any questions about the future and how to grow your business.
When downtime happens, the production of a factory can be thrown off balance. For example, it is estimated that factories lose 5% to 20% productivity during their downtime periods and thus are losing out on potential profits and output.
VersaCall has tools that help generate insight so improvements can be made proactively. Using analytical dashboards and reports to review downtime data may reveal efficiency issues that can be easily fixed.
Prepare your manufacturing business for the future today with VersaCall’s KPI tracking and other productivity tools that will set your company apart from the competition.