Doing more with less – lean manufacturing

Lean man­u­fac­tur­ing is a trend that has been mak­ing its way around mar­kets for years. It is a very sim­ple idea – do the same or more pro­duc­tion with less work, with­out sac­ri­fic­ing qual­i­ty. The sev­en ways in which man­u­fac­tur­ing cre­ates wastes are: over pro­duc­tion, unnec­es­sary stock, inef­fi­cient trans­porta­tion, unnec­es­sary motion, wait­ing times, rejects and defects, and inap­pro­pri­ate processing. 

By find­ing ways to slim down pro­duc­tion lines, man­u­fac­tur­ers are able to save mon­ey on pro­duc­tion, labor and ener­gy costs. These advan­tages also reduce the amount of waste pro­duced dur­ing man­u­fac­tur­ing, which can be friend­ly to the environment.

A lean man­u­fac­tur­er is one that finds ways to work smarter instead of hard­er. For exam­ple, when you realign your pro­duc­tion line to use indus­tri­al robot­ic work cell automa­tion, which can per­form sev­er­al appli­ca­tions at one work­sta­tion, man­u­fac­tur­ers are able to do away with sev­er­al dif­fer­ent steps that are not nec­es­sary to the pro­duc­tion process. This not only reduces waste, but it also speeds up pro­duc­tion, mak­ing the entire process more efficient.

As men­tioned above, a man­u­fac­tur­er that choos­es lean prac­tices is also invest­ing in clean­er man­u­fac­tur­ing. When a com­pa­ny reduces the amount of waste it pro­duces dur­ing man­u­fac­tur­ing, it is good for every­one involved. How is this done? By invest­ing in equip­ment like indus­tri­al robots that are more pre­cise in their appli­ca­tions. This means that they don’t use as much mate­r­i­al dur­ing dis­pens­ing and weld­ing process­es and do not remove too much dur­ing removal process­es. This crack­down on work­er errors, by switch­ing to robot automa­tion, com­plete­ly leans the manufacturer’s pro­duc­tion tac­tics. When this waste is not pro­duced, it also is more envi­ron­men­tal­ly-friend­ly, while sav­ing man­u­fac­tur­ers mon­ey on mate­r­i­al costs.

Are you a man­u­fac­tur­er that would like to invest in lean­er man­u­fac­tur­ing prac­tices through an indus­tri­al automa­tion solu­tion? If so, con­tact Robots​.com. Robots​.com pro­vides solu­tions from sev­er­al top robot­ics com­pa­nies, includ­ing ABB, KUKA, Motoman, Uni­ver­sal Robots, and Fanuc. Our staff will work with you to build the per­fect lean sys­tem for your pro­duc­tion practices.

For more infor­ma­tion on automat­ing your facil­i­ty with Robots​.com, con­tact us online or at 877−762−6881.