What safety protocols does your business follow? 

Safety is an incredibly important part of running a business for both employees and customers. 

Why for the latter? 

Because people only trust businesses who follow the correct procedures – and keep a record of them.    

In our latest podcast, we talk to Safety Evolution CEO, David Brennan, about workplace safety, the most common mistakes people make, and how to implement the right safety protocols in the workplace. So, be sure to listen to this episode to learn more!

Did you know that by sustaining good manufacturing practices, your company can increase its operational efficiency, reach new clientele, increase your competitive advantage, and even reduce overall costs?   

You see, you have a choice: To either adopt these so-called sustainable practices for a few weeks or months or implement and follow through in the months and years to come. You need to make good manufacturing practices a part of your company’s DNA!  

I recently had a sit-down with good manufacturing processes consultant Tomas Brignell of IMIG, UK, to discuss his view on how businesses can successfully implement and continue with these practices in the long-term. 

He explained that in order to successfully follow through with such a plan, there is a four-step method that’ll really help you and your manufacturing team.   

To learn more about this four-step method, listen to this episode and find out how you can benefit from sustaining good manufacturing processes.

You can reach Tom from IMIG on their website https://www.imig.com/en/, or on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/company/imig-uk-ltd/

Manufacturing travellers are product document packs where every single manufacturing process is recorded for tracking and component purposes. These travellers have always worked well in terms of tracking and quality assurance, but are you perhaps wasting time with duplicate entries?

Think about it, if you need to find specific entries or data, you’ll have to sort through all the doubles to finally get to the relevant data you’re looking for. So, what is the most efficient way of completing manufacturing travellers without worrying about duplicate or pointless information?

In this episode, we’re going to discuss the four key features to include in a manufacturing traveller to ensure all your processes are running at optimal productivity.

Follow this link for tools: https://www.metisautomation.co.uk/manufacturing-traveler/

Martin Griffiths, Co-Founder

Metis Automation

https://www.metisautomation.co.uk/

Are you in control of your manufacturing capacity? 

Can your manufacturing process keep up with demand and within customers’ timelines?   

Businesses are so focused on constantly boosting sales and growing the business, they often forget about ensuring the manufacturing part can keep up with the selling part.  

In this episode, we’re going to explore six ways you can perform capacity planning in your manufacturing process, to ensure you meet the demands of your customers while making the revenue you need.  

Follow this link for tools: https://www.metisautomation.co.uk/man...​ 

Martin Griffiths, Co-Founder  Metis Automation https://www.metisautomation.co.uk/

Control is an imperative part of any manufacturing process, and reducing variation is a big step in ensuring control. Why? Because variation is a clear indicator that your manufacturing process is out of control. A high-quality process means the difference between delivering a good or bad product. And if you do end up stopping the process in its tracks before a potentially bad delivery, it could mean double the work, resulting in double the expenses.

The bottom line is this: Reducing variation is a big first step in improving the quality of manufacturing processes – from quantifying the effects to looking at the process itself, and more. We have five easy-to-follow steps at your disposal for you to learn how to reduce variation and deliver excellent products. Be sure to listen to this episode to get the scoop on these five steps!

Martin Griffiths, Co-Founder 

Metis Automation

http://www.metisautomation.co.uk/

Many companies around the world lose billions each year due to downtime. Machine downtime is an unintended reduction or halt in a production process or machine. There are numerous reasons why this can happen, but the main question is, how can you reduce or even avoid machine downtime?

In this episode, I have outlined five key steps you can take to address machine downtime systematically to ensure your processes run optimally and effectively.

Follow this link for tools: https://www.metisautomation.co.uk/reduce-machine-downtime/

Martin Griffiths, Co-Founder

Metis Automation

https://www.metisautomation.co.uk/

Visual product inspection is critical, but we’re all only human – and humans are prone to error. While your factory likely has plenty of verification testing and automated inspections in place, it’s not uncommon for problems to continue slipping through the cracks. Thankfully, there are 4 simple steps you can take to ensure better cosmetic inspections, now and in the future.   

In this episode, I will give you the insight you need to do a better visual inspection of products, and the changes you need to make might be a lot simpler than you think.  

Follow this link for tools: https://www.metisautomation.co.uk/visual-product-inspection/ 

Martin Griffiths, Co-Founder  

Metis Automation 

https://www.metisautomation.co.uk/

There’s little worse than having a slow production process. You can easily talk to unproductive employees, but slow machines are a different story altogether. Do you know what you call a process that has one thing slowing it down? A bottleneck.

In order to run a successful manufacturing process, you need to look at possible bottlenecks that might be slowing down other processes in your production line.

In this episode, I will give you four suggestions for improving your machine productivity.

Follow this link for tools: https://www.metisautomation.co.uk/machine-productivity/

Martin Griffiths, Co-Founder

Metis Automation

https://www.metisautomation.co.uk/

What does it mean to have good visibility of your production processes?

Well, simply put, you need to know exactly what’s going on in your production process in order to make the right decisions when it comes down to the crunch. When companies don’t have sufficient visibility, collecting data will become a timely and tedious operation.

What’s more, the data they’re collecting is probably out of date. This means they either can’t make the right decisions, or they’re unknowingly making wrong decisions that could cost them money.

To save your time, money, and valuable assets, you can start by taking small steps towards improving the visibility of your production process. Once you’ve achieved this, you can start focusing on the right areas that need the most improvement, growth, and time.

To be successful, you need to be in control and in the loop of your production process.

So, how do you get yourself into the know?

Listen to this episode to find out the ways you can improve the visibility of your assets, products, people, and processes.

Full blog post here: https://www.metisautomation.co.uk/how-to-improve-the-visibility-of-your-production-processes/

2019 was a dark time for the Takata Corporation.

Why? Manufacturing faults.

Car manufacturer Toyota had to recall 1.7 million vehicles due to airbag faults that Takata supplied. This not only posed huge safety risks for drivers but could directly affect Toyota’s reputation. Because of Takata’s manufacturing mistake, they eventually had to file for bankruptcy…

Turns out, according to Wikipedia, Takata admitted in 2014 that their Mexican subsidiary had mishandled the manufacturing of explosive propellants and also unethically stored airbag chemicals. Not only did they have to identify which vehicles had these failures, but they also had to pay the ultimate price.

What about the customer? The customer who specifically buys a vehicle for its safety? This same customer will forever be hesitant to purchase any car, never mind a Toyota!

These types of preventable manufacturing mistakes frustrate, annoy, and eliminate trust between customer and manufacturer. They are also low-hanging fruit for business improvement. After all, what is easier than solving a solvable problem?

You might not realise it yet, but identifying several concurrent mistakes in your manufacturing process, or having several product returns, is already the first step to preventing them. If you know there is potential for failure, it means you already know more about your manufacturing process than most.

Now that you’ve successfully determined that something is off, you can go about resolving the issue and preventing it from happening again.

But how do you go about actually solving the problem?

The answer might or might not be as simple as you think, but it’s achievable either way. You need to approach these mistakes in a systemised way to create significant impact, and fast!

Check out this episode to discover a 5-step system on detecting and preventing mistakes in your manufacturing process.

Full blog here: https://www.metisautomation.co.uk/detect-and-prevent-manufacturing-mistakes/