Eight Ways to Increase Productivity on the Manufacturing Floor
All manufacturers know that increasing productivity and efficiency on the production floor is vital to profit margin and continued success. But how do you ramp up productivity without sacrificing quality? Leading manufacturers are turning to technology to increase productivity and gain valuable insights into data.
Process Management
Too frequently, process mismanagement has negative impacts on manufacturing production. With too few or too many steps for a single operation, missing time studies, and inadequate work instruction, production is slowed substantially, or comes to a complete halt. These issues can easily be addressed with Dynamics 365, which can help you streamline your processes and give your employees the information they need to quickly adjust to any manufacturing changes and keep the production lines running seamlessly.
See how process management is handled in Dynamics 365.
Scheduled Maintenance and Strategic Inventory
By scheduling your routine maintenance, your production never falls behind or slows down. Additionally, predictive maintenance offers insights into when a production line likely will fail, and gives you the opportunity to fix any issues before they occur.
In order to understand your production needs and schedule deadlines, you need information on inventory levels and projected sales. With Dynamics 365 you can rely on real-time data to understand both what you have in stock, where items are located, and what sales are forecasted for a specific time frame.
See how these processes are managed in Dynamics 365.
Quality Control Integration
Quality control is a key component of any manufacturing process. However, many times companies use external quality control systems that don’t integrate with their business operations system. Quality can affect downstream manufacturing processes, which makes an integrated solution even more important to ensure fast rework production and inventory quarantine capabilities.
Hear how quality control is managed in Dynamics 365 and how you’ll benefit.
Manufacturing Resource Production
Many manufacturers do not use MRP through a business operations system and even fewer use finite capacity or product restrictions to identify when product is needed and when it needs to be produced. By using Dynamics 365’s MRP capabilities you can gain visibilities into allocation of inventory, what materials are required for production, production timelines, and the impact of inventory on your production.
Learn about the benefits of MRP and how Dynamics 365 delivers.
Enterprise Asset Management
Enterprise Asset Management can help your manufacturing company track equipment and true cost of production, streamline operations through preventative maintenance, and enhance production schedules by automatically blocking off time for maintenance. By keeping track of the equipment in your facility, you can accurately predict maintenance needs, generate work orders for equipment, and understand the true costs of your production lifecycle. This enables you to better price each product that you produce.
See how EAM works in Dynamics 365.
Shop Floor Control
Shop floor control, or a manufacturing execution system, is critical to communicating and consuming information during production. If your shop floor system is separated from your business system, you can’t effectively take advantage of internal capabilities such as quality management. Using Dynamics 365, you can track employee time, manage resources such as equipment and people, and give your manufacturing employees the information they need to be more productive. Within the system your employees can:
- Log in
- Track labor hours against products or jobs
- View time allocated towards specific jobs
- Bundle jobs together and spread the cost of labor across multiple production orders
See these capabilities in action in Dynamics 365.
Workflow Automation
As technology capabilities grow, so does the need for automation on manufacturing floors. The Power Platform can easily help automate your processes and enable your employees to do more with less.
- Easily set up Power Automate to create a workflow triggered by a specific business event
- Report information through a variety of platforms
See how easy it is to set up workflows with Power Automate and Dynamics 365.
Mobile Capabilities
Mobile devices empower your employees with information directly at their fingertips. Using an Android or iOS device, employees can
- Process outbound shipments, picks, and packs
- Complete Kanban picking
- Put away production into inventory
- Locate inventory in the warehouse
Hear about how your manufacturing organization could benefit from mobile enablement.
Technology can help manufacturing companies become more efficient and productive while offering actionable insights into data. Learn more about Dynamics 365 for manufacturing by reaching out to Stoneridge Software.
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