Process variation is one of the key challenges facing manufacturers in every sector and industry. Inefficient planning, non-optimal facility layout, poorly maintained machinery… all these factors and more can impede product flow and cause quality issues.
It can place manufacturing facilities in cyclical firefighting mode as they strive to meet customer demand for high-quality output.
Yet the solution is glaringly simple. Regardless of the number and complexity of processes involved, manufacturing excellence comes from ensuring every stage is fully optimized, with waste eliminated wherever possible. This shortens lead times, adds value, increases overall process efficiency, and improves capability.
Our best practice methodologies are all about making this possible – quickly, simply, and effectively. We have a proven Lean digital manufacturing approach that is completely tailored to the organization we work with. As well as helping you identify and eliminate all unnecessary waste throughout the shopfloor and manufacturing functions, our expert team of consultants will work alongside you to create and embed improvements in efficiency, speed and bottom-line profitability.
Our aim is to transfer our skills and knowledge around manufacturing to your workforce, so it becomes part of the culture and working ethos of everyone involved in the process, delivering on-going improvements long after we have left the premises.
In the past two and a half years, as manufacturing companies in the defense sector have struggled to cope with unprecedented challenges and disruptions, lean digital manufacturing has gained prominence as an ideal method to solve the kinds of complex problems and disruptions caused by the pandemic, the war in Ukraine, and other world events.
There’s no question that we’ve entered the era of Industry 4.0, described by pwc as encompassing “end-to-end digitization and data integration of the value chain.” Industry 4.0 companies optimize production to the fullest extent by connecting physical, virtual, and human assets, and integrating all operations and internal activities.
The manufacturing industry is under ever more constant pressure to produce better goods more quickly and at lower cost. With increasing global competition and the economic challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic, industries must take huge leaps forward in streamlining operations, re-tooling plants, and innovating how they design and build products in order to boost or even simply maintain profit margins.
A year into the COVID-19 pandemic, companies must cope with greater uncertainty than ever before, due to the unpredictability of consumer demand, dramatic fluctuations in supply chains and the instability of the broader economy. The future looks just as unsettled, with manufacturers tasked with trying to determine the ways in which things will settle in the new normal i.e., Which changes will be long-lasting or even permanent. In an environment in such flux, some have wondered whether Lean Manufacturing remains as relevant and valuable as in the past.
Right now, manufacturers barely have time to catch their breath, never mind consider how the future may look. Manufacturers face a unique set of constraints that make the pandemic crisis particularly challenging: Factories have high sunk costs, a need for skilled labor, and complex supply chains. Even if is still possible to operate in the crisis, operations can be easily interrupted by key skilled workers being absent or supply chains being interrupted. Simply put, with that level of sunk costs coupled with a dependency on commodity pricing, operational losses can mount quickly.
Across all industries, manufacturers who apply lean management principles enjoy significant competitive advantages in getting products to market, reducing costs and meeting customer expectations. Most commonly, we think of introducing lean into an existing plant or manufacturing facility, but there is also the possibility of applying Lean thinking when an organization has the opportunity to build a brand-new facility.
Empower your business for the digital age with our expert guidance
Our vision is to be the highest quality and most reliable partner for our clients on their lean journey to become the most efficient and effective competitors in their industries.
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