Raw material prices are soaring, skilled labour is in shortage, and the supply chain is congested – it is challenging to manage and successfully operate production lines. However, manufacturing must become more efficient and will. The era of automation arrived and won’t go away.
Continuous improvement is a key strategy and should be envisioned as part of the corporate culture. Continuous improvement is based upon measuring and comparing data, getting insights and learning to make things better, safer, and faster – in one word: more efficient.
As most factories are older than 25 years, retrofitting machines is crucial to make a step forward and enjoy the potential of industry 4.0: improving operational performance.
Managers and teams operate under assumptions, receiving market feedback, and constantly trying to adapt their offerings to remain in business. It is vital to understand the outcomes of the actions taken and adapt tactics and strategies to be successful. To get valuable insights, you need a comprehensive system of indicators. But performance monitoring is more than just a few numbers: they are the foundation for further accessing your business intelligence (and applying helpful technologies like RTLS)
“What gets measured is what gets done” is still true today. Operational performance objectives describe and focus long term goals and strategic objectives; they also draw people’s attention to what counts, what matters, and what is essential. Performance results are helpful for leadership and management because they are precise and actionable. Operational performance objectives have a directive function by focusing attention, interest, and eagerness on mission-relevant and goal-relevant actions. The connection between goals and performance has been demonstrated empirically: What gets measured gets attention. This can benefit the process before operational improvements have been implemented or the measurement results are known.
Measurement helps our understanding of performance, both its intended and unintended aspects. Are things getting better or worse? What are the outcomes of a program or service, and how do the results stack up against the inputs? Replies to these simple questions are consequential for the manager/team willing to listen. Performance measures are also the most effective way of communicating with stakeholders about the success of products, services or improvement activities. Using performance measures objectives that are easily understood demystifies a process and allows them to know how well they perform.
If you are keen to uncover black boxes in your processes and generate monitoring data from them, you will have the chance to discover the true bottlenecks of your production line.
For further reading, enjoy our latest whitepaper: Operational Performance Monitoring. Collect your data for benchmarking.
