How to Increase Manufacturing Productivity?
 
Manufacturing productivity refers to the maximum capacity where the business makes full use of all the resources to generate the most the cost-efficient product. It is important to achieve an optimum level of productivity as it affects cost, profitability and the ability to remain competitive.
 
Productivity in Chemical Manufacturing Industry can be achieved in the following ways:
 

1. Organize the workspace – Organizing is the key to an efficient workspace. The manufacturing floor should be organized appropriately to avoid clutter and should save time in each step of the manufacturing process. There should be a designated spot for storing all the raw materials. The safety equipment’s should be kept closer to the workspace so that the workers can quickly get hold of it before they start working. If the product to be manufactured has to go through various stages of manufacturing make sure that the machineries are kept in a systematic manner and closer to each other so that the time taken to transfer the material from one machine to another can be minimized as much as possible.

 

2. Scheduled maintenance of the machineries – Maintenance of the machineries should be scheduled at regular intervals to avoid downtime. Even though regular maintenance schedules can be inconvenient, they are an essential part of the keeping the operation active and the equipment well running. It helps to avoid unexpected downtime or work stoppage. The workers should be trained to pay attention to what’s happening with each machine so that incase they notice any problem with any part of the machinery the issue can be resolved quickly.

 

3. Evaluate the process of production – Evaluating the production process at regular intervals is necessary to see if the production process is going according to the plan. If there is a delay in the production process identify the bottleneck and try to remove it. You should have a good understanding of which workers perform well in which step of production and accordingly they should be assigned for that step of production. This will help in achieving the optimum level of productivity.

 

4. Maintain an optimum level of Inventory – If you have too much inventory, you will need storage space for the same. If you have less inventory there are chances of slow production as you wait for your raw materials to arrive causing a delay in delivering the finished product to your customer. Maintaining the right mix of inventory is very important and it can be achieved by estimating the future demand of the customers for your products and accordingly ordering quantity of the raw materials a little excess than what is required so that there is no stoppage in the production process if there are more orders and at the same time if the orders are less that quantity of raw materials can be easily stored for future use.

 

5. Avoid wastages and spilling of raw materials – Spilling of raw materials should be minimised by using adequate equipment of transferring the raw materials from the bags to the machinery. Avoid wastage of any kind and where ever possible try to reuse.

 

6. Reducing the variable costs – Variable costs in a chemical manufacturing plant are electricity and water. These constitute a major chunk of the variable cost and by saving these your company can be cost efficient. Electricity can be saved by investing in renewable sources of energy such as solar energy. Although the initial costs of investment are very high it will reap benefits in the future. Water can be saved by reusing water as much as possible and also harvesting rain water.

 
Following the above steps will help in increasing the productivity to a considerable level. Increase in productivity will lead to increase in profits, decrease in costs and will provide the company with a competitive edge.