By David Chavez, IMI director of North American sales
Speed to market is a crucial factor in a manufacturer’s success, which means streamlining the production process is essential. Not only does a lean production process enable manufacturers to get products to market faster than their competitors, but it also means they spend less on production and enjoy healthier profit margins.
Small businesses, especially, should pay attention to anything that can reduce their production time and costs, because smaller businesses often lack the resources of their larger competitors. Every penny and every second count.
Although it may not be possible to eliminate all waste from the production cycle, there’s a lot that manufacturers can do to get closer to perfect. Discipline and innovation enable manufacturers to reduce the amount of time and money they spend during the production cycle.
The Design For Manufacturing (DFM) technique enables individual pieces of a product to be produced and assembled at the final stages of production, reducing the overall production time and minimizing barriers in completing production. With this DFM method, designing for efficiency in manufacturing focuses on reducing the overall individual production cost of each portion of the item.
A key component of the agile manufacturing process, DFM benefits from small or singular-batch production that gives managers the ability to correct issues in production as they arise, without having to adjust for the overall production line.
Small businesses—or at least those interested in succeeding—should click on the infographic below…
