Top 4 Profit Killers in Manufacturing & How Maintenance Technology Can Help

When you combine all of today’s concerns for manufacturers with the economy, the effects of the pandemic and the US-Chine trade tensions, it’s a critical time for your maintenance operations. 

And you’re the critical piece to helping ensure you can operate efficiently and profitably.  

A good place to start is to look at the top profit killers that could be plaguing manufacturing organization and start on a path of improvement to boost your profit, workflow and organizational success. 

The maintenance professional’s impact 

Maintenance professionals are just as responsible as other areas of your manufacturing organization for profitability.  

You have the power to: 

• Increase organization and production capacity 

• Integrate and streamline across many departments 

• Impact your organizational success and growth 

The way you operate on a daily basis has a big impact with how your organization is able to thrive, especially in the current economic environment. That’s why it is so important that you have the right tools to shift from firefighting mode to a proactive one that grows profitability and operational excellence. 

Maintenance technology as key to your success 

Thankfully, maintenance management software is here to help – with the tools, automation, organization you need to keep your finger on the pulse of your impact on profitability. 

Your CMMS (computerized maintenance management system) is your source for the information you need to optimize what you’re doing today and set a plan for continuous improvement tomorrow. 

After all, organizations that use a CMMS can experience: 

• 35-50% improvement in the reliability of your equipment1 

• 28.3% increase in maintenance productivity2 

• 20.1% reduction in equipment downtime2 

• 19.4% savings in material costs2 

Let's explore how a CMMS can help you avoid profit killers in these top four areas: 

1. Labor and staff  

2. Parts and procurement  

3. Asset effectiveness  

4. Compliance  

1. Unlocking labor and staff efficiency 

How you organize and equip your staff can have a great effect on your profitability – and there are simple ways to use your CMMS to achieve more efficiency in this area. 

Profit killers for labor and staff: 

• Poor team planning that makes you more reactive 

• Wasted time using or chasing down paperwork on work orders, inventory, etc. 

• Missing good instruction for maintenance tasks 

Profit promoters for labor and staff: 

• Optimize team scheduling and work- Have an organized, interactive schedule so you can optimize who is doing what work and avoid overtime costs. 

 

• Solid, streamlined and mobile workflow- Solidify your workflow and automate notifying the appropriate team members in the right order so you can increase efficiency. Utilize mobile to help your team to get instant access to their work details, enabling them to do their work faster, wherever they’re located. 

 

• Clear instructions- It's much easier to follow directions and instructions when they’re accessible, digital and clear. You can achieve all of that with the step-by-step instructions,  manuals and other guidance within your CMMS. 

 

• Dashboard for your workforce overview- Being able to access real-time data at your fingertips means you can see the big picture and make better decisions about labor and staff to increase your profitability. 

2. Organizing Parts & Procurement Processes 

Inventory management is an area that can really cost you – whether it’s from having too many parts or too few – but what you need is a solid strategy for getting more organized on your manufacturing parts and procurement processes. 

Profit killers for parts and procurement: 

• Stock-outs 

• Stocking too many expensive parts or stock parts that expire 

• Not having the parts you need when you take an asset down 

Profit promoters for parts and procurement:  

• A system for parts management- You need a place where you can build out the necessary inventory information that you need to confidently manage, order and reorder parts. 

 

• A way to avoid stock-outs- No one wants to lose money from stock-outs, and that's why you need a detailed digital inventory to inform your actions and decisions. Be able to see what parts you have before you work on an asset and automate reorder points. 

 

• Use just-in-time inventory and ordering- This process can help you stock fewer parts (and reduce costs), while ensuring the quantity available is visible to your entire organization. 

3. Optimizing Asset Effectiveness 

Your assets are the lifeblood of your operations, so their care and management can easily make the difference between gaining and killing profit. 

Profit killers for asset effectiveness: 

• Downtime 

• Wasted labor by your production team 

• Assets that don’t last and need excessive repairs 

• Waste of energy, parts and materials 

Profit promoters for asset effectiveness: 

• Utilize asset barcoding- Use QR code scanning on assets to quickly bring up associated work, work history and other asset details/instructions right at your fingertips. 

• Understand why you have downtime- Information is key, so use your CMMS’s reporting to easily investigate your downtime, using problem codes and cause codes to make decisions that help extend asset life. 

 

• Confident repair vs. replace decisions- Use your asset data to know when you should repair or replace and reap the profitability benefits of making data-driven decisions. 

 

• Asset life cycle analysis- This type of reporting can help you answer: What are my best assets? and Where do I need help? It can also help you act on cost trends. 

4. Confidently Address Compliance 

Compliance standards are meant to help you operate safely and efficiently (which often ties back to profit), so it’s an area that you really can’t ignore. 

Profit killers for compliance: 

• Not staying up to date on compliance 

• Undocumented preventive maintenance  

• Losing compliance or lowering quality of products, leading to fees, fines and insurance costs 

Profit promoters for compliance: 

• Establish a compliance workflow- From work order statuses to escalating work to capturing digital signatures, your CMMS can help you organize a fail-proof workflow for compliance-related tasks. 

 

• Document safety practices- For PPE instructions, lock-out, tag-out procedures, and documents like safety datasheets, a CMMS can help you easily access and update all of it. Having all safety documentation in one place means you can operate more efficiently and safely.  

  

 

• Provable preventive maintenance- With good instructions, a solid schedule and reliable data on your preventive maintenance program, you can promote safety and compliance. And prove your compliance work to your auditors.  

Your Path to Continuous Improvement & Profitability 

Although we’ve walked through several areas of improvement for your workflow and profitability – it’s important to remember that it’s a process. 

 

And we’re always here to help you with the tools and training you need to succeed. 

Ready to maximize your profitability and productivity? Schedule a demo to see how we can help you get there. 

 

Sources: 

1 https://www.dudesolutions.com/resource/Guide-to-Becoming-a-Preventive-Maintenance-All-Star 

2 http://www.eeperformance.org/uploads/8/6/5/0/8650231/o_m_guide_2004.pdf