How to determine which industrial machine will give you the greatest benefit

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How to determine which industrial machine will give you the greatest benefit

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When you have an industrial process that is not producing enough finished goods, you may be tempted to look for new equipment.

But before you spend money on any new equipment, you should first make sure you are getting something that will improve your total output (and not just a small part of the process). Otherwise, you may just be throwing away your money.

Identify the bottleneck in your workflow

To get the largest return on your investment, you need to think about the complete process. Let’s say that you need to send parts through three steps, at three different machines, to get your finished goods.

If machine A can produce 100 parts per hour, machine B can produce 50 parts per hour, and machine C produces 70 parts per hour, then your highest total throughput is 50 parts per hour. Machine B is your limiting factor, your bottleneck.

In this situation, if you spend your money on a newer machine A or C, you’re still only going to be able to produce 50 parts per hour. Make sure that the equipment you replace is the one that matters.

Determine if the current bottleneck machine needs to remain in the workflow

You may also be able to reduce the demands on your bottleneck machine.

It may be possible to take some of the workload off your existing equipment by using other underutilized machines to assist. Also, adding QA in front of that machine may help relieve the load. There’s no need to use its time working on parts that will need to be discarded or re-worked.

Identify a machine to replace it

If you do need to find a replacement for some of your equipment, you still have some questions to ask.

When looking for an improvement in processing speed, you’ll need to know what your throughput is for your current equipment. Make sure that the new equipment will actually improve this, once it replaces your existing machine.

Let’s say that your bottleneck machine only performs one function, so you never need to spend time on setups. In this case, a new machine that runs at the same rate, but has a decreased setup time, isn’t going to help your throughput.

You may also want to find a machine that can perform some of the tasks of machines immediately before or after your current one in the process. Then your new equipment may be able to take some of the workload off them.

After bringing in your new machine

When you do replace one of your industrial machines, it’s often a good idea to keep the old equipment around for a while.

If you’ve focused on the piece of equipment that is the bottleneck in your process, it may take some time to get up to speed with the new machine. While you’re getting proficient with the new equipment, you may actually have a decreased output on a step that was already a limiting factor of your workflow.

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Tags: • workload • return on investment • total output • industrial machines •

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