The thing that can’t be measured can’t be managed. Any manufacturer, who is willing to improve the production process and take his business to the next level, needs to collect and analyze the relevant data or suitable metrics. Numeric or numbers are powerful parameters for any business. The correct metrics can help a manufacturer to find the sticking points or weak spots in his production floor by giving him all the information and insights he needs to continuously improve and refine his business.
It’s quite crucial to understand the interrelationship between high-level goals, objectives and what actions or methods are required to achieve them. Depending upon systems and processes in the production floor, production managers may face one of the two problems; either he is not aware of the KPIs he should track to enable him to improve his factory performance or he is unable to collect sufficient data to accurately measure the KPIs he wants to track.
To help business heads and other stakeholders, here’s a list of some crucial KPIs that they can measure to improve their production floor efficiency.
Goods Count/Actual Production
The manufacturing industry depends on the raw material companies gather from different regions of the globe. However, there might be the possibility that there’s a certain amount of impurity in it or chances are that the final product is not matching the expectation it was supposed to. Good count/actual production count refers to the final product which is ready for sale, i.e., the amount of total product manufactured minus the scrapped product. This KPI helps supervisors to take care of the product from the very beginning that is from the raw material stage. This, as a result, helps the factory to lower its production costs.
Availability (%)
To achieve optimum production in the factory, the production manager has to monitor the availability of the machines and manage the production floor operations accordingly. Availability KPI allows floor supervisors/production floor managers to have real-time insights into the availability of machines. This KPI is the ratio of operating time to planned production time.
Performance (%)
To have a precise idea of the productivity of the factory, it is very important for a floor supervisor or floor manager to monitor the performance of the machinery. Performance KPI allows the supervisor to have the essential information that can help him to optimize the machine operation to improve the overall performance of the factory. It is represented as the percentage of actual output out of the expected outcome of the planned production.
Quality (%)
To have long-term business success and profit, maintaining the quality of production is crucial. Maintaining the quality throughout different manufacturing process in the production floor leads to optimum quality of the final product. Quality KPI can help the manufacturer to compare and monitor the quality of processes on the production floor. It represents the percentage of goods count out of the actual production count for the products.
Overall Equipment Effectiveness (OEE)
A production floor can be said to be efficient when every machine, equipment and labor are working at their best. Overall Equipment Effectiveness (OEE) KPI provides the manufacturer about the overall performance of the factory. This is a simple, yet most important KPI to monitor the efficiency of a production floor. OEE is equals to Availability X Performance X Quality, and it can be used to indicate the overall effectiveness of a piece of production equipment or an entire production line.
Behind Plan (%)
As a result of some technical complication or any mishap in the production floor, processes might be disrupted. These disruptions may hamper the production time. With Behind Plan KPI, a floor supervisor can monitor how much the floor is lagging in meeting their target. It also allows the supervisor to know how much effort to put in to achieve the desired goal. It is represented as what percentage of actual production is less than the expected quantity.
Manufacturing Cycle Time
In any business, time is money. If a company is able to deliver the product on time, he can surely generate more money. Manufacturing Cycle Time KPI measures the time taken for a product to pass through all the machines, processes, departments, and cycle to be called as the final product. This allows a floor manager to improve and optimize the processes to get better output from the factory.
Throughput
It is one of the simplest yet most important manufacturing KPIs, allowing companies to measure the average number of units produced on a machine, production line, or by a plant over a specified period of time.
Downtime
Yet again, it is one of the most important KPIs to be measured on a production floor. Whether it is breakdown or simply a machine changeover, downtime can seriously affect the production. Hence it gets quite crucial for floor supervisors to monitor the downtime to maintain the productivity of the floor. Downtime KPI allows the floor manager to optimize processes for better production time and output.
Bottom line
At Softweb Solutions, we understand the importance of key performance indicators on the production floor. Keeping the vitality of the KPIs in mind, Softweb Solutions has developed Softweb Smart Factory solution. It allows supervisors, managers and other stakeholders to get real-time, continuous and standardized production data analysis. Softweb Smart Factory helps factory owners to have a better knowledge of their production lines which can point out the problematic areas and take better decisions to meet dynamic demands of the production line.
