What is your productivity potential?

Currently, in Spring 2020, manufacturing companies are facing different kinds of challenges. Some are frantic, assembling ventilators and other essential equipment to deal with the pandemic. Others, in contrast, are inoperative and in a holding pattern. In the coming weeks, both extremes will face the prospect of the world coming out of lockdown and dealing with what the ‘next normal’ will be in their commercial lives.

Will long, global and just-in-time supply chains now be seen as a higher risk strategy? Will that mean some re-shoring? The competitive landscape will see some changes, and those quick off the mark may gain an advantage. The UK has a painful recent record on productivity but will need to compete hard as the economy restarts. This will mean using its workforce and resources more efficiently and by being astute enough to give their employees the means to do their jobs more productively. Maybe now is the time to start thinking about your productivity potential.

As part of the new campaign, Intertronics is offering detailed guidance on how manufacturers can use materials that cure in seconds, improve dispensing precision and reduce operational costs. It will also promote the ways manufacturers can produce the same output faster and with fewer resources and people in the assembly process.

“When we think about productivity we immediately jump to output, but the two are not analogous,” explained Peter Swanson, Managing Director at Intertronics. “For many manufacturers, an equally valid way to increase productivity is to achieve the same consistent, high-quality output while keeping input and resources to a minimum.

“Our particular focus is repeatability and predictability as we find this can make a big difference for manufacturers. ‘What is your productivity potential?’ is a campaign we’ve launched to offer manufacturers guidance on how they can use automated dispensing, UV light curing and other processes to increase their accuracy and ensure consistency, while reducing the waste and rework that’s often involved.

“Improving productivity doesn’t have to be about big leaps, it could be about increasing your production or regularly decreasing your inputs by as little as five percent. Could you produce the same in fewer shifts or using less resources?”