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Factory Floor – how to improve the management of this area?

O chão de fábrica é uma das partes mais importantes da indústria

The factory floor is the heart of any industry. This is where things really happen and where we must join forces to increase productivity. Thus, it is essential that managers know how to form a good team, define good planning, closely monitor what happens in the production line and have adequate tools to measure the results achieved.

 

Building the team on the factory floor

The first step in good factory floor management is in recruiting employees. More than schooling, what should take into account at this stage is the technical capacity of the professionals. As the industry today are segmented, it is worth opting for more specialist candidates who have taken courses in the desired area.

However, remember also to think about the strategic side. Look for professionals who are thirsty for learning and can think about the business as a whole. Today, the factory floor is a segment where companies seek constant innovation and optimization of their production processes. Therefore, it is necessary to have professionals who have analytical skills and do not work in an “automatic way”.

With the team in hand, it is essential to pay attention to the performance of each employee, reward those who achieve the best results and find ways to train and motivate those who are not performing.

 

Planning

Planning processes on the factory floor is not a simple task. We have already talked about Production Planning and Control (PCP) and its importance for the entire industry. The big challenge for good planning is to know how to focus on processes and people.

Thus, it is important to emphasize that planning need to be done considering the opinions of those on the front lines. It is not only managers who must coordinate the movements of the factory, but the workers themselves need to show where the main difficulties are and provide insights on how to solve them.

In other words, it is essential that both the strategic sector (PPC) and the operational area (factory floor) are always aligned and willing to improve the processes of the entire operation. For this, good planning and constant communication between the areas is necessary.

 

Monitoring and management

It is essential that important information about the production process is measure and share with the entire team. Many factories use, for example, the Cash Management method, whose purpose is to show everyone involved what is happening in production. Thus, information such as parts produced, quality index, average time at each stage are noted on a large board or monitors visible to the entire team.

Taking this care to raise and document metrics is essential to increase productivity on the factory floor. And, of course, with the data in hand it is essential that managers make analyzes and make decisions based on what was visualized.

 

Management technology for Factory floor

As we have seen, it is very important to have metrics for greater control of productivity in the industry. However, if is done manually, with the employees themselves entering the data, it is possible that some problems will arise in this survey. First, the manager will not have the information regarding the operation in real time. In addition, errors and human error in the process are possible.

Technology can come on the scene to help manage the factory floor. There are software, such as BPMS, that assist in pointing production, for example. Through them, it is possible to have a better view of the tasks, follow the production progress and monitor the factory resources in a much faster and more organized way than if done manually.

However, it is common for this data still be place manually in software like this. That is, someone will always have to describe what tasks are being perform.

With an indoor geolocation system like that of Novidá, the situation changes. This is because it is possible to map what is really happening on the factory floor. Using sensors, the manager has all the movement of resources within the plant in the palm of his hand. There are no metrics flaws in the process and the insights that can be take are much more accurate.

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