How productive would you say your warehouse or distribution center is? How many products do you pack, how many pallets do you wrap, and how many packages do you get out the door per day?
Maybe you’re meeting quota; maybe you’re not. But in this competitive, global world, there’s always room for improvement. Numbers matter if you want to keep customers and clients happy and vie with competitors.
“Throughout capacity” is a different way of saying “rate of production.” It refers to how fast you pack, wrap, and palletize to prepare your products for shipment. Let’s look at some ways to increase product throughput capacity and make your facility not only faster but better.
Review Your Workflow
Before you can increase your throughput capacity, you need to identify what’s currently limiting it. Reviewing your existing workflow is a good place to start. There are three areas you should carefully evaluate: your labor force, equipment, and processes. Here are some questions to ask yourself during your evaluation.
Labor
Do you have enough workers? Are they adequately trained? Is the work they produce consistent, or is it sloppy?
Equipment
How old is your current equipment? Is it in good condition? How often does it break down or need repair? Does it serve its purpose effectively?
Processes
Do you have a set of standard processes? Can you identify your pain points and bottlenecks? If so, what are they?
Eliminate Bottlenecks
You’ve evaluated your workflow and pinpointed your core weaknesses. Now you can work on eliminating your pain points and bottlenecks—the things that are slowing you down and holding you back.
Maybe your processes are outdated and need to be reexamined, or your old machines are causing unnecessary and costly downtime. Maybe you don’t have enough workers and need to hire more, or maybe your current employees need additional supervision and training. Maybe you should consider a Robot S7 portable stretch wrapper that provides you with the flexibility to bring the machine to the load. Eliminating bottlenecks, whatever they may be, puts you one step closer to achieving higher production rates.
Minimize Equipment Downtime
Unexpected downtime can cost your facility an astronomical amount of time and money. Preventing this downtime is one way to increase product throughput capacity.
The best way to eliminate downtime is to monitor your machines with R-connect, a remote monitoring tool that helps you quickly identify issues to perform regular inspections and maintenance on your machines. Inspections and maintenance take time and money, but they take far less time and money than unanticipated downtime and repairs.
Of course, the older your machines are, the more often you should perform inspections and maintenance on them. If you don’t think the costs of keeping your old machinery up and running are worth it, invest in new equipment.
New equipment has an upfront cost but will save you money in the long run. New machines don’t require as much maintenance as old machines and break down far less often, which translates into less downtime for your facility. And new machines also come with the latest technology, which can help you increase throughput, accuracy, and safety.
Robopac USA has fully automatic wrapping machines and other state-of-the-art and high-tech machinery that can help you increase your facility’s throughput. Shop with us today or contact us for more information!
