How to Reduce Manufacturing Lead Time

Lead Time Reduction Introduction

For professionals who work in operations and finance for manufacturing companies, the pressure to get things done faster in order to please customers and maximize profitability is a primary concern. Proving the old adage that time is money, studies show that after an RFP is made, the first proposal submitted is up to 80 percent more likely to be the one that’s selected. As a result, with regard to proposal submissions, a short turnaround time has more impact on the customer’s decision-making process than the value or quality of the product in question.

So if timing is so important in relation to RFPs, what about lead time reduction benefits? To be clear, if you think the way to reduce the overall time between receiving and filling orders — or lead time — is to simply tell your employees to work faster, you need to think again. That method of lead time reduction in manufacturing often leads to rushed work and more mistakes. These issues can, in turn, cost you more in rework and recalls, which can also cause a deterioration in your customers’ satisfaction with your product.

After three decades as a manufacturing and efficiency consultant to thousands of companies in South Central Pennsylvania, MANTEC has some valuable insights regarding the most effective ways to realistically reduce lead times without compromising the quality of your product. Read on to learn about how time and money go hand-in-hand in manufacturing.

Reducing Lead Time in Manufacturing: Support, Productivity and Unrushed Work

Clearly, reducing your lead time in manufacturing has to be a well thought out process, or the results can be far from what you intended them to be. To actually decrease your lead time without compromising quality, consider the following lead time reduction method steps:

• Create lead times with your suppliers: If you’re waiting on stock or have an abundance of discontinued stock, it can negatively impact your lead times. In most circumstances, when you’re willing to share some of your sales data and possibly create an automated inventory system, your suppliers will be more than willing to build lead times into their contracts with your company.
• Consider parallel instead of series work: Think of two people painting the same wall. If one uses a brush to do the trim while the other uses a roller to cover the central surface area, this strategy in parallel makes short work of the project. The same holds true for manufacturing. Instead of making a number of stops, starts and handoffs that can delay action and lead to errors, set up work stations that allow for parallel work that moves the manufacturing process along smoothly and efficiently.
• Employ technology to compress work and decrease loops: Rework due to rushed and/or shoddy work is costly, yet when the right technology is applied, work times can be compressed and quality can be maintained. To use the painting example from above, when spray technology is used by a properly trained painter, the same wall can be completed in a fraction of the time it would take to paint it with a traditional brush and roller — and with just as good, if not better, results.

Are you interested in learning more about how you can reduce your lead time? For information on this process or any of MANTEC’s other consulting services, contact us today.