Are you looking for ways to improve profits, enhance efficiency and reduce waste in your operations?
In rapidly changing times like these, companies must evolve to meet changing demands. Tighter budgets, fewer staff and increased regulatory requirements require a focused approach and one that runs on insights, rather than instinct. One way to do that is through lean manufacturing, or lean production. While the concept is largely associated with manufacturing facilities and factories, all businesses can benefit from implementing lean manufacturing principles.
What is Lean Manufacturing?
Lean manufacturing, or lean production, is a systematic approach to reduce waste and increase productivity in manufacturing, production or service industries. Lean manufacturing essentially removes all of the unnecessary waste that exists in your processes, from the office to the production floor, helping you improve operations at every level of your business. The first step in improving your operations is to identify key areas of waste.
Do you recognize these examples of waste commonly found in manufacturing facilities, production facilities and remote worksites?
- Defects
Waste created from product or service failure resulting in scrapped or reworked items. - Excess Processing
Waste caused by processes that create unnecessary work or produce higher quality work than is required. - Overproduction
Waste caused by producing more product than demand requires. - Waiting
Waste caused by high levels of wait time between processes due to idle equipment. - Inventory
Waste caused by excess or missing inventory. - Transportation
Waste caused by inefficient or excessive transportation strategies, leading to wasted time, resources and costs. - Motion
Waste caused by inefficient production flows, resulting in unnecessary movement of people and equipment. - Non-Utilized Talent
This eighth waste is relatively new on the list of inefficiencies and accounts for wastes due to underutilization of staff talents and skills.
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By identifying and eliminating these common areas of waste, you can increase product quality, improve lead times, increase employee satisfaction, and increase profits. Superior offers lean management tools to address waste and tackle your biggest production challenges.
Vendor Managed Inventory
Inefficient inventory management can have expensive consequences such as excessive carrying and storage costs of unnecessary inventory items, as well as production costs associated with missing inventory. Additionally, if your skilled workers must spend time sourcing and tracking inventory items instead of performing their tasks, their production and your profitability suffers.
For companies looking to gain better control over their inventory usage, reduce costs and free up valuable time, vendor managed inventory (VMI) solutions through Superior Industrial Supply can help with your supply chain management. We supply the top brands in industrial supplies for maintenance, repair and operating applications, including fasteners, hydraulic hoses and fittings, abrasives, tools and more. Our VMI capabilities can help you:
- Improve inventory turns
- Reduce purchase orders, paperwork and stock outages
- Accurately track item usage
- Ensure accurate and efficient receiving
- Gain delivery to point-of-use
- Free up employee time
Onsite Hose Repair
Superior Industrial Supply is well-known for its long history supplying the industrial workforce with heavy duty hydraulic hoses and fittings and hoses strong enough to handle extreme temperatures, corrosive liquids and high pressure. But did you know we also offer onsite hose repair options?
If you have ever had a hydraulic hose burst on site, you know how time-consuming it can be to locate someone to repair that hose quickly and effectively. In remote locations, or during second or third shifts, waiting for that repair can take hours, if not days. If you don’t have the capability to fix it yourself, it can become a very expensive problem. When missed deadlines and equipment downtime isn’t an option, we have you covered.
For companies that run heavy equipment regularly, we can place a hose crimping machine onsite, complete with bulk hose and hose ends. We also offer thorough training for fast and effective hose repair when you need it most.
LEARN MORE ABOUT SUPERIOR INDUSTRIAL SUPPLY PRODUCTS AND SERVICES.
If you have questions on how Superior can help you reduce waste in your facility, stop into our St. Louis location, or call 800-783-6501.