The Hidden Factory: 3 Ways to Minimize Your Hidden Factory
The term “hidden factory” is often used in the context of quality management and process improvement in manufacturing and other industries. Hidden Factory refers to the inefficiencies, waste, defects, and rework that occur within an organization’s operations but are not immediately visible in standard performance metrics or reports.
These hidden issues can have a significant impact on an organization’s productivity, quality, and profitability.
Read on to learn more about the concept of hidden factory in manufacturing:
The concept of the hidden factory is closely related to the idea of “waste” in lean manufacturing and Six Sigma methodologies. These methodologies aim to identify and eliminate various forms of waste, including defects, overproduction, excess inventory, waiting times, unnecessary processing, and underutilized employee skills. When these forms of waste are present, they contribute to the existence of the hidden factory, as resources are consumed without adding value to the final product or service.
Here are some common aspects of the hidden factory:
Rework and Defects: Products or services that do not meet quality standards and require rework, repair, or additional processing to correct defects. This often involves hidden costs in terms of time, materials, and labor.
Excess Inventory: Accumulation of excess raw materials, work-in-progress (WIP), or finished goods due to overproduction or inefficient supply chain management. This ties up capital, storage space, and working capital.
Waiting Times: Idle time experienced by employees, equipment, or materials due to delays in the production process, equipment breakdowns, or bottlenecks in workflows.
Inefficient Processes: Suboptimal or outdated processes that result in inefficient resource utilization and unnecessary work. This can include redundant tasks, unnecessary paperwork, or lack of standardized procedures.
Underutilized Employees: Employees not fully engaged or not working to their full potential, leading to wasted human resources. This can occur when employees lack training, motivation, or involvement in process improvement.
Unplanned Downtime: Unexpected equipment breakdowns or downtime due to maintenance issues, which disrupt production schedules and lead to lost productivity.
Inadequate Communication: Poor communication between departments or individuals that results in misunderstandings, errors, and rework to correct mistakes.
Lost Knowledge: Tacit knowledge held by employees that is not captured, documented, or shared within the organization. When employees leave or retire, this knowledge can be lost, leading to inefficiencies.
Inaccurate Forecasts: Poor forecasting leading to overproduction or underproduction, which results in inventory imbalances and resource wastage.
Safety Incidents: Safety issues, accidents, or near-misses that can disrupt operations, result in work stoppages, and incur costs associated with injury or damage.
3 ways to minimize your Hidden Factory
Minimizing your Hidden Factory and improving operational efficiency involves a combination of strategies and methodologies aimed at identifying and addressing waste, defects, and inefficiencies within an organization. Common approaches include adopting principles from lean manufacturing, which focuses on eliminating waste in all its forms, as well as incorporating processes like continuous improvement, Six Sigma, root cause analysis, and data-driven decision-making.
Consider leveraging digital technology and automation to streamline processes, reduce manual intervention, and minimize the potential for errors.
Here are 3 ways to help minimize the hidden factory:
1. Go Paperless
A paperless factory uses digital technology to manage production, keep track of records, and optimize jobs being executed on the shop floor. Paperless manufacturing is intended to replace written record-keeping as well as paper-based work instructions, checklists, and SOPs, and keep track of records digitally.
For example, in most manufacturing operations, everything from quality inspections to operator rounds and planned and autonomous maintenance is done on a regular basis to make sure factory equipment is operating properly and quality and safety standards are met. In most manufacturing plants, these activities are done manually with paper-based instructions, checklists, or forms.
Operators and shop floor workers in paperless factories use software to execute work procedures and see production tasks in ordered sequences, which enables them to implement tasks accordingly. Workers are able to view operating procedures using mobile devices (wearables, tablets, etc.) in real-time. This helps to digitize and standardize quality control and inspection procedures, maintenance routines, and many other operational processes.
A paperless system can revolutionize production processes, significantly reduce defects and waste, optimize workforce management, and improve production operations.
2. Standardize Work
Establish and document standard work procedures to ensure consistency and reduce variations in processes, and use visual tools and connected worker solutions to schedule and assign standard work (e.g. Operator Rounds, Safety Audits, CILs, Centerlining procedures). and visually audit the work being done with built-in scheduled work reporting. This helps visually audit the work being done with build-in scheduled work reporting. By standardizing and tracking schedule work, operations leaders can prevent errors and defects from occurring.
3. Digitize Skills Delivery, Tracking, and Management
Keeping track of employee skills is a beneficial way to organize a company’s resources to attain sustainable business goals. However, too often this is manually managed separately through spreadsheets, which are not readily available to operations managers. Furthermore, an employee’s access to skills and training content is often disconnected from the shop floor. Implementing a connected worker solution and digitizing skills delivery and skills management processes through mobile devices and smart manufacturing technologies is an effective way for organizations to deliver training in the flow of work, instantly visualize the skills gaps in teams, as well as track workforce skills and quickly assess both team and individual readiness.
Minimizing the hidden factory is an ongoing effort, and it often requires a commitment to a culture of continuous improvement and a proactive approach to problem-solving. By systematically identifying and addressing hidden factory issues, organizations can enhance their efficiency, quality, and competitiveness.
How Augmentir can help you minimize your Hidden Factory
More and more manufacturing processes are becoming digitized and connected, with good results. It’s no surprise that manufacturing firms are turning to digital solutions to help their workforce operate at the highest safety, quality, and productivity levels.
That’s where Augmentir can help. We are the world’s only AI-powered connected worker solution enabling industrial companies to reduce waste, optimize processes, and drive continuous improvement.
Our cloud-based solution can help with:
Transitioning from paper-based to digital work instructions
Scheduling, assigning, and monitoring standard work
Digitizing quality control and inspection processes
Optimizing worker performance through digital skills management
Fostering worker collaboration and knowledge sharing
Providing real-time insights into worker performance
Learn more about how Augmentir can help you minimize your hidden factory. Book a live demo today!
