December 16, 2020 5 Tips for Reducing Downtime on Production Lines

Essential tips you can incorporate to reduce downtime in your plant.

Scheduled downtime in manufacturing plants is a common practice designed to help technicians repair and upgrade all the optimum production systems. However, when unscheduled downtime happens, engineers in the production line are not prepared, which means that the plant may take an extended period to restart. As such, the company losses vast amounts of money every minute the plant is not producing. As a line supervisor, here are some essential tips you can incorporate to reduce downtime in your plant.

1. Know the Local Repair Contractors

One of the main reasons it takes so long for the equipment to be back in operations is the lack of repair contractors. As the line technician, knowing and familiarizing with local repair experts means that your plant will be repaired immediately and will be back in operations. You will also save money because local contractors do not have to travel to your facility. To know more about local repair experts, read Networx reviews of local contractors and repair services.

2. Improve Staff Communication

With well-oiled communication between line supervisors and line employees, manufacturing downtime will significantly be reduced. Supervisors need to communicate to their employees the impact of manufacturing downtime and corporate profits. Everything should be efficiently communicated so that other workers around the plant can understand their roles in making sure that the equipment is always operating. When everything is clear, workers will quickly respond, in case of equipment breakage, so that manufacturing can resume.

3. Conduct Regular Equipment Maintenance

Regular equipment maintenance is an essential strategy of not only reducing but eliminating downtime in a manufacturing organization. Oiling, greasing, tightening nuts, and replacing worn-out parts is a preventive procedure that lowers equipment breakage risk. When regular maintenance is administered, the equipment will always operate at optimum levels. Also, any breakage in such situations will be manageable, thereby lowering the risk of total equipment collapse, which has devastating impacts on the organization.

4. Offer Equipment Training to Employees

Studies show that more than 70% of all downtime is caused by input errors from line workers who do not know to operate the plant. With little or no training, input errors will continue to occur, thereby causing downtime to the production process. To eliminate input errors, line supervisors should administer professional training on equipment handling to all the line employees. If all the line workers have sufficient knowledge on plant handling, downtime will be reduced to 30%.

5. Upgrade Manufacturing Equipment

Downtime is also caused by obsolete parts of the manufacturing equipment that have served beyond their expiry date. Therefore, technicians should regularly update the manufacturing plant to be better suited to handle all the necessary manufacturing requirements. With the advancement in technology, it is possible to keep the equipment efficient and effective and counter any downtime that may be brought about by defective parts.

Unscheduled downtimes in manufacturing and production lines have devastating impacts on the overall profitability of the organization. Most manufacturing plants have been facing extreme financial challenges because they have not met their production targets due to regular and unscheduled equipment downtime. However, proactive line supervisors can reverse the negative trends by training their workers, updating the equipment, liaising with local contractors, and conducting regular equipment repair and maintenance.

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