So you're getting data, but not exactly sure what to do with it? Don't worry, we’ve got your back. Check out the Guide below from our Continuous Improvement Specialists! They help customers like you use their data for initiatives to run more efficiently.
The Importance of Utilization Data
In manufacturing, time is money.
There are costs that a factory must pay, simply to be in business —whether you're making product or not—labor, rent, utilities, raw material, etc.
If you're not offsetting those costs by producing parts to be sold, you're losing money. This is why machine utilization is so important, and in this section, we'll outline several projects you can execute to increase utilization. Before you get started, learn how you can use actually use utilization data to justify a project before you put time & money into it.
Project Savings Calculator
To quantify your potential projects, we’ve built a calculator to cover some of these scenarios.
There are currently 4 tabs. Each tab covers some general scenario. When applicable, the results at the bottom will give an estimate for making improvements in the area.
- Generic Productivity Increase Calculator. This tool is used to input the current state of the entire shop or just a department, and to visualize in dollars, percentages, and time what an increase in performance would look like. It can be helpful to see how much improvement is made by increasing utilization by a few percentage points, and how that translates to both dollars and time saved.
- Downtime Reduction Calculator. This tab is used to target specific downtime codes for a project. The results below will help contextualize the time savings, dollars, and overall increase in utilization after making improvements to just one (or a small set) of downtime codes.
- Late Start / Early Stops. This calculator is designed for the late start / early stop project. Its purpose is to measure how much manufacturing time is lost by not starting exactly when the bell rings for shift change, and by not going all the way to the end of the shift. If starting a shift is chaotic, or if the cleanup/downtime during shift change is eating into productive time, this tool can help visualize how much money can be gained by improving those critical times of the day.
- Target Dollar Amount Project. The fourth tab is designed to help individuals work backwards from a savings goal and determine the size of project required to achieve it. If the goal is to reduce costs by a specific amount, this is where you should start and work backwards. If thinking in terms of dollars makes more sense than thinking in terms of utilization, this is a useful tool for understanding what types of projects are necessary to achieve the desired monetary value.