Pro-Active planning prevents manufacturing downtime
Downtime refers to any periods a company cannot work at its full potential or fulfill its main function. This can be due to human error, network related issues, faulty machinery or lack of planning regarding building material.
Any number of factors can play a significant role in downtime. However, with Pro-Active planning a large amount of these factors can be eliminated, ensuring less downtime and more profit for your company.
Know your loss
It is important to know exactly what one hour of downtime would cost you.
The easiest way to determine this would be by calculating the cost of labour per hour and adding it to the revenue lost per hour.
- To accurately calculate the cost of labor you need to determine the number of employees affected by the downtime and multiply that with what they would earn in one hour.
- For the revenue you need to know how much you would make in one day and divide it by the total hours you work in the day.
By adding these you will have an estimate of how much revenue you lose per hour of downtime.
Say one of your machines broke down today or you run out of material, how many hours/days would it take to replace that machine or source new material? When you multiply that with how much one hour of downtime would cost the numbers start adding up.
Some organizations reported a loss of over $100 000 per hour of downtime, a portion of this loss could have been prevented.
Downtime is not just about monetary loss.
When a business unexpectedly comes to a halt it leaves the customer with a negative experience, downtime not only affects your company, but also those dependent on you. When you cannot fulfill their needs, they are likely to find someone else that can.
When you know what is at stake, it puts into perspective just how important it is to be proactive rather that reactive.
Take a Risk Audit
It is important to undertake a risk audit. One of the biggest causes of downtime is equipment failure. More often than not, companies still use equipment that is older than 15 years. This poses a greater risk for equipment failure.
Manufacturers often no longer support these machines or stock spare parts. They can be hard to come by and could take weeks to be delivered as they generally need to come from other countries.
Knowing how old your equipment is, where it can be serviced and where replacement parts can be found or how readily available new equipment is, could make the difference between a few hours and a few weeks of downtime.
A risk assessment would also reveal problems in security, safety and quality which can be addressed to ensure you have less downtime.
Be Prepared
A Risk Audit is just one of many things you can do to ensure you have less downtime. When you’re planning on tackling a construction job be sure you know exactly what lies ahead.
Here are a few tips you can follow:
- Set clear goals, have a meeting with all the role players to ensure everyone is considered when setting a goal.
- Identify trouble spots that may cause problems and then find solutions for them. It is all about being proactive.
- Ensure you have everything you need for each step of the process. Have a quantity surveyor help with this step.
- Keep track of supplies and progress on daily/weekly basis.
These are just a few things you can keep in mind before you start your next project. Being proactive is all about thinking ahead and taking all things into consideration before they happen.
Planning may take up a lot of time but in the end, it saves much more than it takes. If you find it difficult to implement in your business, or can’t see the value of it, start with yourself. One example of how being pro-active saves us time on a near daily basis is taking traffic into consideration. By thinking ahead you can identify that traffic might cause you to be late for work. Thus, you plan ahead and save time by leaving earlier.
If planning ahead a few hours can save you time and money, how much more would planning a week or month maybe even a year ahead save your company?