Wondering how to improve factory productivity? Improving your business’ productivity in the factory takes a comprehensive approach, including leveraging technology and boosting the work environment. While individual productivity is also important, factory productivity refers to a ratio of output to input. In short, materials, labor, and capital are the input, and the finished product is the output.
Of course, if your individual workers aren’t happy, they probably won’t work to their full potential. In fact, Gallup research has indicated that unhappy workers cost U.S. businesses a whopping $1.9 trillion annually. Therefore, it’s vital to balance your factory’s needs with the needs of your employees. Done correctly, a successful combination of these priorities can boost overall factory productivity.
How to Improve Factory Productivity in 8 Steps
Boosting productivity and efficiency is a proven way to improve profits and make your employees feel more satisfied at work. Utilize the following eight tips to help give your company a much-needed boost.
1. Lean into Lean Manufacturing
At first glance, the idea of ‘lean manufacturing’ doesn’t sound employee-based. However, what it actually means is to reduce waste and optimize workflows. Furthermore, lean manufacturing includes the elimination of any non-value-added activities.
One proven way to identify and eliminate wastefulness is through a Kaizen event. Invite everyone from C-suite executives to brand new employees. During this 3-5 day event, your company can brainstorm solutions to improve wasteful practices such as:
- Non-utilized talent – Repositioning employees whose skills go unused due to poor task allocation or management decisions.
- Defects – Flawed products that require rework (and related overtime), create waste materials, or lead to dissatisfied customers.
- Extra processing – Unnecessary steps in production that do not add any value to the final product.
- Overproduction – Making more of a product than demand requires, leading to storage and wasted resources.
- Motion (Muda) – Excessive movement by employees or machines that adds no value. In Lean Manufacturing, this type of motion is classified as muda, or waste.
- Transportation – Inefficient or unnecessary transport routes or systems that increase time and cost.
- Excess inventory – Storing more finished goods (FIGO) materials, or work in process (WIP) than necessary, which increases holding and inventory control costs.
- Waiting – Idle time when workers or machines are delayed by earlier steps in the process.
Pro tip: Invite personnel who are directly involved in or impacted by the factory process targeted for improvement. That way, the team contributing to the Kaizen event has a real “stake” in the outcome, making them more engaged and motivated to drive meaningful change. After all, that’s where the term “stakeholders” came from!
2. Optimize Your Factory’s Layout
Imagine your factory is split into four zones: A, B, C, and D. Optimizing your layout means eliminating things that stand in your workers’ way.
For instance, let’s say that an employee works in zone A, but they have to walk over to zone D a few times a day to get their work done. If you were to optimize your layout, you might choose to have your zone A worker switch to zone D. That way, they don’t have to walk far to finish their job, which is an example of better material flow. By eliminating these extra steps, you can improve factory productivity.
Other things you should consider when optimizing your layout include employee morale, safety, flexibility, technology, and future growth. People typically don’t want their workstation’s location to be changed several times in a short period, so do a thorough workflow analysis to ensure you get it right the first time.
3. Leverage Automation to Save Time
Automation is a term that can scare workers, but it doesn’t need to be. The entire purpose of automation is to have machines or robots focusing on repetitive tasks that workers don’t enjoy doing. By freeing your employees from small, repetitive tasks, they can take on higher-value work. It works as a win-win for you and your employees! That’s why if you’ve been wondering how to improve factory productivity, leveraging automation is a great way to save time.
4. Enhance Communication Tools
White-collar workers who typically spend their time on a computer have a wide range of options available to communicate with each other. Tools like email, video conferencing, webinar tools, online whiteboard collaboration, etc. are all useful, as are social media and Slack. But what about your employees who work on the line? They often utilize other forms of communication tools.
Fortunately, you can use smart radios to enable workers to stay in contact with each other. With capabilities unique from traditional walkie-talkies, smart radios such as Relay have a much wider range and offer vital tools like TeamTranslate that instantly translate more than 30 languages. By putting this one tool in place, you can reduce language-related workplace accidents by 25%. Even better, Relay provides panic alerts and GPS location tracking, so if something is amiss, or a lone worker is in trouble, your team can respond immediately.
Is your team not using radios effectively and you’ve been looking for a better way to streamline communications? Whether you’re looking for a tool with better reliability, easier adoption, or added safety enhancements, book a 1:1 demo with a Relay product expert to learn why we might be a better fit!
5. Provide Proper Training to Boost Employee Engagement
If you want to improve workplace productivity, you should also enhance your training sessions. According to Industry Week, a third of all workers in the U.S. don’t receive any formal training. Instead, they’re simply thrown into the mix and have to figure everything out on the job. Furthermore, only about 24% of frontline workers feel like they’ve been adequately trained for their job.
If you take the time to provide proper training, your employees can reward you with 20% more productivity. It goes much further than that, though, as they’ll also be happier, more confident workers who are less likely to make costly mistakes. Currently, an estimated 61% of employees deal with symptoms of anxiety, anger, depression, fatigue, aches, etc. related to their workplace. Given that employee disengagement costs U.S. companies around $550 billion per year, focusing on providing effective team member training and boosting employee satisfaction can result in a substantial, positive corporate impact. Overall, the benefits of proper training include:
- Better decision-making
- Reduced absenteeism
- Enhanced innovation
- Lower turnover rate
- Boosted productivity
- A more positive work environment
- Stronger talent recruitment
- Improved customer service
Also, don’t forget about the importance of upskilling your employees. Not only do they need proper training, but they should also be given the opportunity to learn about data analysis, digital tools, and advanced manufacturing systems. Otherwise, the demand for their skills could diminish in the near future.
6. Use Preventative Maintenance Techniques
Every workplace wants to improve productivity and reduce downtime. However, this often gets undercut by attempts to cut costs, especially when it comes to equipment upkeep. Take something as essential as a conveyor belt.
When it’s not working, most factory operations grind to a halt. Yet, simple maintenance tasks like keeping it aligned or lubricated are often delayed or skipped entirely.
That short-term thinking can become very expensive. One industry group estimated that a broken conveyor belt can cost as much as $260,000 per hour, while another report places that cost closer than $22,000 per minute. And that’s just the immediate financial impact. There are also harder-to-measure effects like damaging customer trust, last minute labor costs, and the ripple effect of missing delivery deadlines.
Brightly, a Siemens company, reports that preventative maintenance programs can cut costs by up to 12% to 18% and generate up to a 400% return on investment. In other words, setting aside time and resources before problems happen does not waste money, it saves it.
And yet, 60% of companies still rely on run-to-failure strategies. Choosing to save a little now by skipping maintenance can end up exploding long-term costs. It’s a risky approach that sometimes backfires when unplanned downtime and emergency repairs through operations off course.
Make Maintenance Tasks Easy to Follow and Track
A good preventive strategy starts with consistency. Create a checklist that includes simple daily or weekly tasks, such as:
- Visual inspections to spot where, misalignment, or damage
- Cleaning to remove debris and reduce buildup around the system
- Lubricating moving parts like bearings and drive components.
- Testing safety systems such as emergency stops and machine guards.
Routine checklists help ensure no tasks slips through the cracks. Maintaining detailed maintenance records also helps identify recurring issues, track performance, and refine your strategy as patterns emerge. This type of documentation can make the difference between catching a small problem early on or facing a costly failure later.
7. Place an Emphasis on Factory Ergonomics
You probably already know that your white-collar workers prefer ergonomic workstations. But have you ever contemplated how to offer your frontline workers an ergonomic experience? It comes down to workstation design, tool selection, and material handling, and it can make a big difference to your factory’s productivity.
First up is workstation design. Each station on your factory floor should allow size adjustments because this will help people of a variety of body types do their job without added headaches. Choosing tools that promote neutral postures, while also being lightweight and easy to use, may help reduce workplace injuries. Finally, putting systems in place to help your employees push, pull, and lift heavy objects can improve workplace safety.
Again, this is something that simply makes good sense, yet many factory owners choose to ignore it. Do so at your own risk, though, as factory workers without good ergonomics are much more likely to face:
- Musculoskeletal disorders
- Reduced efficiency
- Reduced productivity
- Increased safety risk
- Decreased job satisfaction
8. Incorporate Flexible Scheduling
If you really want your factory’s productivity to increase, you might want to consider incorporating flexible scheduling. To explain why, let’s use a single mother as an example.
You’ve got a great worker, but her productivity goes down at times and she’s always keeping an eye on the clock in the afternoon. You eventually discover that her child’s school day ends an hour before her workday, which gives her increased anxiety and reduces productivity during her last scheduled working hour.
By implementing flexible scheduling, such as letting your employee work from 8 a.m. – 2 p.m. and coming back from 4 p.m. – 6 p.m., you can help her balance external and workplace responsibilities. As a result, your employee’s productivity will remain consistent and she’ll be much more relaxed. Again, this is a win-win for both of you.
Even allowing occasional flexibility can keep your employees happier. After all, we’ve all had something important come up that we haven’t been able to attend due to our work schedules. Allowing people to adjust their schedule as needed will go a long way toward ensuring the proper work-life balance. Plus, it’ll be greatly appreciated by your employees, and happy workers are better workers.
Boost Productivity and Worker Happiness
As you’ve learned, there is a fine line between boosting factory productivity and keeping your workers happy enough to keep it up. Offering things such as preventative maintenance, factory ergonomics, and flexible scheduling will go a long way, though. Also, don’t forget about the importance of giving them enhanced communication tools so that help is only a button press away.
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