Manufacturing continues to evolve, opening up a whole new world of possibilities for progressive manufacturing companies with an eye on innovation. However, keeping up with the rapid transformations in the post-pandemic world presents a new challenge for manufacturing companies since they are forced to find new ways to adapt to changing market dynamics. The manufacturing disruptions arising from COVID-19 have further hampered transformations. These disruptions include staggering worker attendance and restricted labor movement within and between countries, making it imperative to retrain a workforce that may not be receptive to new concepts. Adopting industry best practices and advanced technologies can help mitigate the effects in multiple ways, boosting production efficiency, asset productivity, and product quality.
Industry Best Practices – Manufacturing Industry
Connected manufacturing
With manufacturing playing a crucial role in enhancing the digital economy, customers’ expectations of product quality and customization are also increasing. Notably, a connected supply chain plays a crucial role in connected manufacturing. Hence one of the industry best practices is to maintain a connected end-to-end supply chain that provides comprehensive visibility across a manufacturing enterprise, its suppliers, customers, and trading partners. A connected supply chain also helps manufacturers to anticipate customer needs and supply chain demand.
Would you like to learn more about the industry best practices for manufacturing companies? Contact our experts to get started.
Adopt lean methodologies
A lean manufacturing methodology examines business processes, identifies what truly adds value, and eliminates non-value activities. Given the rise in transformations and manufacturing technologies, manufacturing companies have the freedom to define their lean journeys, minimize defects, reduce overproduction, limit wasted motion, and optimize inventory levels.
Initiate preventive maintenance
Initiating preventive maintenance is crucial for gaining an edge in the manufacturing industry. Implementing a comprehensive asset maintenance program to schedule maintenance for each piece of equipment can help reduce downtime and costly breakdowns.
Automate manufacturing processes
One of the top industry best practices across industries is automation. In the manufacturing industry, leveraging automation on the plant floor streamlines processes, minimizes human error, and reduces production costs. Request a free proposal to learn how Infiniti Research can help you evolve and tackle new challenges.
Focus on quality management
Change is essential for business success across industries. Adapting to change in the manufacturing industry is crucial and requires careful consideration and process enhancements. Implementing and using a quality management system drives production efficiency and helps reduce mistakes, thereby improving customer satisfaction.
Track environmental sustainability
Environmental sustainability has become increasingly important in not just the manufacturing industry but across industries. However, the failure to comply with global standards and local trade regulations can result in penalties and legal hurdles. Hence, manufacturing companies must adopt industry best practices that focus on sustainability to improve process transparency and compliance with environmental standards.
Create an active response plan
Manufacturers across economies are witnessing a rise in business disruptions, whether from protests or strikes, government regulations, turbulent weather, pandemics, or other occurrences. Creating and maintaining an operations checklist by leveraging industry best practices can help manufacturing companies overcome disruptions.
Preparing for a resilient, digitized future beyond four walls of a manufacturing plant
Companies can leverage technology to drive changes across the end-to-end manufacturing value chain and address disruptions at production plants and challenges related to transport & logistics. At the same time, one cannot deny that the pandemic has presented multiple humanitarian challenges on a global scale that require new types of strategies to address. As organizations begin to reimagine their processes, they have an opportunity to redefine the future of manufacturing with resilient operations. Moreover, early successes have shown that manufacturing companies can start on their industry 4.0 journey in a small way and then scale their operations to achieve their strategic objectives. Request more information from our experts to learn how we help leading manufacturing companies gain an edge through custom-built solutions and tailored business strategies.