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Two Keys to Increasing Productivity: Software Automation and Hardware Utilization

One of the keys to effectively running a world-class company is finding ways to constantly increase productivity. This article explores the importance of measuring operational performance and discusses various strategies for doing so.

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About Howie Fenton

Howie Fenton is InfoTrends' Associate Director of Operational Consulting. For over 25 years, he has focused on benchmarking operational and financial performance in in-plants and commercial printers. He can be reached via e-mail at [email protected].

Discussion

By Cory Sawatzki on Jul 16, 2015

Thank you Howie, I want to use your bottom line as the top line for my website.

Can you suggest some tools for companies to help them rate their own automation performance? The very statement you made about the people asking where they rate with other printers tells a big story. How do you benchmark something when you don't know what you should expect in the first place.

The biggest problem is not being able to tell you have one.

Thanks again for the article. Great way to start my morning!

 

By Chris Lynn on Jul 16, 2015

A better metric is OEE - Overall Equipment effectiveness because it takes quality into account too. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overall_equipment_effectiveness for details.

Cory - the way to start is to measure where you are now, and use that as your benchmark against which to measure improvements. It can also be helpful to use plant simulation software to see the effect of changes before you make them - see this video for a label printing example:
http://www.hillamtech.com/label-plant-simulation/

 

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