Key Metrices to Improve Shop Floor Performance

Manufacturers often struggle to identify the right set of metrices to determine the health of their processes. Most of the times they measure what is available through the tools which they would have implemented. However, these may not be comprehensive and may not give the entire picture. The reality also is that most of the manufacturers don’t even know what KPIs or metrices to monitor. In this article we will see how Shop floor tracking helps in the process of monitoring and capturing real-time data on the activities, movements, and status of assets and personnel within a manufacturing shop floor.

Understanding the health of the business has a scientific approach where there needs to be a strategy and then tools to measure the same. The strategy may change based on the business needs.

Through this article, we would like to highlight some key metrices or KPIs that one needs to understand and know how they are determining the performance of the shop floor.

1. Overall Equipment Efficiency – This is the most important KPI which gives a good view of one’s overall production process. This is a combination of Availability, Performance and Quality. There are various formulas to calculate each of them and then determine OEE
2. Operating Efficiency – While OEE determines the efficiency of equipment and machinery. Adding human factor into this determines the overall Operating efficiency.
3. Capacity Utilization – This is the measure of actual no. of goods produced with reference to the capacity available. This determines how efficiently the resources are being utilized. The factors determining can be due to performance of man and machine and also due to the business factors
4. Total Cycle Time – Total time taken by processing the order from start to finish is the Total Cycle time. This parameter determines the overall capacity at which one can process their orders.
5. Machine Uptime – Machine uptime is a critical factor in maintaining optimal productivity and efficiency on the shop floor. This is the measure of how much time the machine was available for production. The machine uptime is calculated by deducting the amount of planned and unplanned downtime of the machine to the total time over a period of time. This is a good parameter to determine the machines performance and capability to
6. Throughput – The is the measure of units produced over a period of time. This gives you an idea of the overall capacity at which you can product the goods. This also gives one an indication of the capacity enhancement required.
7. Schedule Adherence – This the measure of effectiveness of one’s planning. Schedule adherence can be measured as comparison of the actual schedule v/s the planned schedule
8. Scrap – Scrap management is an essential aspect of shop floor operations in manufacturing. But the amount of scrap produced for every process shows the overall efficiency of the process. Higher scrap produced impacts one material cost, higher production cycle and quality

There are multiple such KPIs and parameters which will depend upon the type of process, type of product and other factors. It is for the manufacturers to understand this and determine which of these KPIs fit into their strategy.

But one thing is sure that you need certain systems and tools to determine these KPIs. One cannot rely on the data being generated manually by different departments or sections of the shop floor.

You will also learn about Inventory Management in our blog on How is Inventory Management different for Manufacturing and get more knowledge about the same.

Manufapp’s Manufacturing Execution System or MES is one such system which aggregates, process and analyze the data from various systems and points in the factory and provide the specific KPIs in the personalized dashboards required by the factory owners.

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