Small Business guide to manufacturing processes

While many people assume that small businesses are often not associated with manufacturing, in the U.S. small manufacturers can be found in all fifty states. Organizations such as the American Small Manufacturers Coalition (ASMC) exist solely to promote small manufacturers and to lobby government to assist with legislation and federal programs.

Small manufacturers offer specialized and personalized products that larger manufacturers cannot make profitably. Niche manufacturing by small manufacturers can allow them to operate in areas that have little or no competition from larger companies.

Doing business with China

Industrial trend indicate that doing business with China better be on everyone's priority list. Knowing how to expand and do business in China before the opportunity arises will allow companies to capitalize on the movement of the trend. Companies who are looking to expand their business in China would do well to pay attention to several key factors that could help grow their China-based operations.

Industrial trends have shown that so many companies are headed there in droves, many have stayed and more continue to arrive. According to the U.S.-China Business Council's 2008 survey, 90 percent of the council's members are highly optimistic about expanding their businesses in China over the next five years, as the majority of these companies reported profitable operations. Although rising costs continue to be a growing concern, nearly half say their margins in China were better than their margins globally.

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Have you ever wondered about how complex manufacturing systems work? How, for example, do large manufacturing processes that take raw material inputs know how much should come through their manufacturing plant? Consider how a thermometer measures the temprature in a room and then makes changes with the furnace. If the temperature is too low the furnace is turned on by a controller mechanism known as an industrial control system. Without these systems many of the systems in our homes or businesses would not work. In manufacturing these control systems are absolutely central to everything. A controller needs to monitor the material coming into the process. There is a target level of production which varies depending on certain conditions. The controller alters the total amount of material depending on these conditions. Any engineer will tell you that it is absolutely imperative that a control system be in place for any type of heavy manufacturing. Control systems have become a major part of manufacturing and the computer systems that come with them are just as important.

Overhauling your company based on six sigma ideas

Since six sigma is, a quality measurement and improvement program there should be no questions as to why you should implement it at your manufacturing plant. Many people wonder why they should overhaul their manufacturing plant with six sigma ideas instead of any of the other manufacturing processes that are designed to improve your manufacturing process.

Here are some reasons as to why you should use six sigma ideas to overhaul your company.

Tips for working with non-English speaking employees in manufacturing

The number of non-English speaking workers in the US has grown steadily for years now and has shown no sign of slowing. Right now, in fact, roughly 11% of jobs in America are filled by those who speak no English at all; in manufacturing plants or other laborious jobs, that number frequently rises to over 50%. As a result, it is not uncommon for manufacturing workers to work with people who either don't speak English at all or speak very little.

While this may present various challenges to English speaking workers, there are a number of things you can do while working with non-English speaking employees in manufacturing.

How to do find replacement parts from companies no longer in business?

When you run a business, and especially a manufacturing business you deal with a lot of tools and machinery on a regular basis. It is through these tools that you are able to assemble whatever product it is that you sell. So, naturally if one of these tools or pieces of machinery were to break down, and need a replacement part, you would want to be able to get that replacement part and have it installed so the machinery can be repaired as quickly as possible.

Now, normally when someone needs a replacement part for something they simply call up the manufacturer, or part supplier and order the need part. However, this is not always as easy as it sounds. Unfortunately you can run into some big road bumps when trying to find replacement parts for some of your equipment.

How to avoid ERP failures

What is ERP?
ERP stands for Enterprise Resource Planning. This is an information system that integrates all manufacturing and related applications for an entire enterprise.

An ERP is a great idea for manufacturers if it is done right. ERP failure on the other hand is a big problem as it involves great money. However, ERP success makes great money. In order to avoid ERP failure you should know what causes it:

The causes of ERP failure can be a result of any of the following elements acting in combination or individually. These are to name a few:

1. Trouble in Installation
2. Business related issues
3. Reluctance of end Users

Improving flow through production leveling

Improving flow through production leveling is one component of lean manufacturing, which is an approach to manufacturing that strives to improve productivity and quality by cutting down on waste in all different aspects of the manufacturing process. Lean manufacturing first surfaced in Japan as a process management philosophy from Toyota Production System, also known as TPS. It strives to improve customer value by reducing a number of different wastes. Lean manufacturing can also be used in conjunction with the six sigma approach to management and manufacturing because lean manufacturing works on cutting down on waste and six sigma works on reducing variations in the processes of manufacturing or providing services.

One way that lean manufacturing works to reduce waste, and even eliminate waste if possible from manufacturing processes and service processes is by improving the flow of work through the manufacturing system, instead of just focusing on eliminating waste. There are several different approaches to improving the flow of products by leveling production by means of what are called Kanban and the Heijunka box.

How to deal with manufacturing contracts

One of the most important and the most central parts of manufacturing has nothing to do with the actual manufacturing processes. Instead, it has to do with the contracts for that manufacturing. If you are going to be a successful manufacturer, then you have to know how to manage your contracts and how to work those contracts so that you can actually make a profit on your manufacturing processes. You may actually end up with contracts whose terms and conditions end up being a total risk and exposure that is greater than the annual revenue of your company. Because your manufacturing contracts can be entail so much risk, then you need to make sure that you know how to manage your contracts and that you are committed to negotiating a contract that is mutually beneficial. You also need to ensure that you are all committed to making sure that the contract is met, on both sides, and that all conditions and benefits and obligations are fulfilled.

Making your manufacturing more profitable

The manufacturing process is very complex. It is made up of multiple elements that make any number of problems possible. At the same time, manufacturing contains an immense potential for making a profit. Here are a few suggestions on how to make manufacturing more profitable.

Rescheduling

Manufacturers often rely on parts and pieces that are shipped to them from many different parts of the world. Because a manufacturer cannot produce without the initial parts, planning for disruption can be an effective way to increase profits. By implementing software that can connect with the other companies who are shipping the parts to the manufacturer and that can predict resource conflicts, knowing when to send a job to the job shop will become much more predictable. This will save the manufacturer money and subsequently bring in a higher profit.

Using Business Process Improvement for manufacturing

Manufacturing and Business Process Improvement (BPI) share similar goals. Manufacturing companies know that repeatability is a key component to their organization. BPI provides a way to measure the effectiveness and repeatability of processes. To understand how BPI can help your company in the manufacturing industry, we must learn a little bit about BPI.
Business Process Improvement focuses on helping businesses make changes in the way they are doing business. It works with three steps:

1. Defining the organization's strategic goals and purposes (Who are we, what do we do, and why do we do it?)


2. Determining the organization's customers (or stakeholders) (Who do we serve?)


3. Aligning the business processes to realize the organization's goals (How do we do it better?)

How to implement six sigma policies into your manufacturing business

The Six Sigma process has caught fire with many top companies such as AlliedSignal, GE and Motorola. It is a process that involves a lot of time and a lot of manpower in order to achieve results. Successful implementation is done on a project-by-project basis and will result in continuous improvement of processes. Successful implementation also depends on many factors like the company's culture and the commitment and conviction of its leadership. Without these factors, the Six Sigma process can fail, however successful implementation into your manufacturing business is not as hard as it seems. Below you will find some steps for successful implementation.

The Company Culture
If this is the first process improvement program you have implemented to your company; it may be a little challenging. Organizing the process and having commitment from everyone involved is not always simple. Many times companies find themselves trying new strategies so often that employees don't take them seriously and are resistant to change. This is why the leaders of the process highly influence the company culture. The leaders need to buy in and commit themselves to Six Sigma and their examples will trickle down to everyone in the organization.

What is a sustainable development partnership, and what does it have to do with manufacturing?

A sustainable development partnership, as it is defined by the U.S. Government's Sustainable Development Partnerships Web Site, is intended to "plan and implement voluntary partnerships that promote economic growth, social development and environmental stewardship." The U.S. is partnering with other countries in an effort to create and implement strategies that will meet the goals of the partnership both at home and abroad. Just a few of the areas where these strategies are being implemented include:

 Poverty reduction
 Universal primary education
 Access to clean water and sanitation services
 Access to energy services
 Reducing the spread of infectious diseases
 Reducing hunger and promoting agricultural and rural development
 Conservation and environmental stewardship
 Protecting marine and freshwater resources.

Using BCP (business continuity planning) to reduce operational risks

When a business continuity plan is correctly used it can help reduce operational risks. Operational risk is the risk of loss experienced from internal processes as a result of external events. These internal processes could have failed completely or simply been inadequate. This does include calculating the legal risk as well but does not take into account business risk that is based in strategy or reputation. Some examples of operational risk are losses arising because of internal or external frauds, natural disaster, failed transaction processing or inability to meet the commitment of service, and the disruption of business or system failures.

There are basically five steps in developing and using a business continuity plan. These are: analysis, solution design, implementation, testing and organization acceptance, and maintenance. The complete process to develop a business continuity plan is far to complex to be fully developed here. Careful research by an organization's management to truly understand the needs of their organization is crucial. This can be followed by an in-depth analysis and solution design. These programs can be put into place in-house or a specialty consulting firm can be used in the design of the business continuity plan. That leads to the remaining three steps that become crucial in using the business continuity plan to reduce operational risk. Here is a brief examination of the remaining steps-

Should you use business continuity planning?

Should you use business continuity planning? Yes, but let's take a look at why:

Business continuity planning (BCP) is a methodology used to create and validate an exercised logistical plan for how a company will recover and restore partially or completely interrupted critical functions within a predetermined time after a disaster or extended disruption. Or in easier and plainer terms its how to resume the running of your business or organization after you have been hit by an emergency or disaster. It could be something like a localized power outage or something as national and long term as a pandemic illness. A business continuity plan can be used by any organization as a learning effort that helps reduce operational risk associated with lack of managerial control during a disaster. This process can be combined with improving information security and corporate reputation risk management practices.

5 tips for testing your BCP

The process of determining and implementing procedures to ensure that a business or organization is able to quickly recover from disasters and major disruptions is called a business continuity plan. The goal of business continuity planning is to reduce the impact of a disaster outage or interruption to an acceptable level and allow the business to continue functioning until normal operations can be fully established. An organization should develop a business continuity plan for many reasons but perhaps the most important being that those who run companies are morally and ethically bound to make decisions and plans that will insure the business or government agency continues to operate and serve customers and service recipients. Many companies and most government organizations are required by law to develop continuity and contingency plans. All upper and executive management staff should be made to feel responsible for the survivability and sustainability of their organization or company.

As with any plan the testing for success should come before the actual disaster. This insures that personnel, facilities and all needed materials are at the ready should the worst occur. There are several different ways the business continuity plan can be tested based on the specific needs of the organization. Here are 5 general tests that can be run to help evaluate a business continuity plan-

How variation defines the sigma level in six sigma

You’re a business owner. You manufacture things. Or maybe you’re the manager of a business. Or maybe you’re just an employee at a business. Either way, you’re probably being encouraged on a daily basis to improve your company in every way you can. Your boss (or you as the boss) tries to help you to work as quickly, efficiently and as cost effective as possible. You’re always striving to find new ways to make these improvements. And in case you’re unaware, applying the principles of six sigma is an excellent way to improve your business. This article will discuss six sigma and how variation defines the sigma level in six sigma. And hopefully after reading this article you will have a better idea of how to improve your company.

Since you may or may not be familiar with six sigma, let us begin with an explanation of exactly what it is. Six sigma is a system of practices that were created by the company Motorola. The purpose is to eliminate defects in a company. By defects we mean anything outside of customer specifications. In other words, the parts of a product or service that are not part of the intended population. An example of a defect might be something like this: you do market surveys to see if people would buy chocolate scented perfume, and eventually decide that they would. So you create some chocolate scented perfume and put it on the market. After a few weeks you realize that no one is buying your product. You look back at your market surveys and realize that what the customers really wanted was vanilla scented perfume. This would be considered a defect because you were unable to realize what the customers desired.

The importance of having a manufacturing strategic plan

Picture this, you enter a room full of well over a thousand people. You are there to speak to them about __________. You walk up to the microphone and realize you have no plan, no notes, no slides, nothing to work from, and a very small working knowledge of the subject. What do you do? Do you wing it and hope for the best? Do you apologize? What? Now imagine your whole career, livelihood and even your home are dependant on how well you do. Would that make you nervous?

Manufacturing without a strategic plan is much like walking into that room of thousands in order to speak and having nothing to say. This is your business, your livelihood, don't go at it haphazardly, or on the fly, go into it with a sure fire plan. A strategic plan plays a huge role in shaping the success of industrial firms. Without a plan, it will not matter how good you work is. It is like reading a book that has great prose but no organized plot. No matter how good each line is alone, if it is not all together it is of little use.

What is a customer in context of six sigma?

Whether you are a business owner or just a customer there are certain things you should be aware of about the business world. If you are a business owner you are most likely in a constant battle to improve your business and customer relations. You may be trying to eliminate all defects in your product and services so that your customers remain content. If you are a customer, you’re probably trying to make your desires known so that you are able to get the products and services you need most. Well one thing that can help both business owner and customer is called “six sigma.” This article will discuss what six sigma is and how it relates to a customer.

What is six sigma? Six sigma is a method of practices created by Motorola in order to eliminate defects in a company (the term “defect” will be discussed in greater length further in this article). To many companies, six sigma symbolizes a constant striving for perfection in all aspects of their businesses. It is a disciplined approach towards driving six standard deviations between the mean and nearest specification limit in any process-from manufacturing or products to service. Six sigma is a method of describing how a process in a company is performing.

What is a value stream map and how is it used in Six Sigma?

Value stream mapping (VSM) is a tool that helps you to see and understand the flow of material and information as a product or service moves through the value stream. This is defined as all of the activities, both value adding and non-value adding (wastes) that are required to bring a product from raw materials into the hands of the customer. A future state map is then created which leads to the creation of an implementation plan.
VSM is sometimes referred to as an end-to-end system map because it takes into account the activity of the product in all phases of production, including the management and information systems that support the basic process. It covers all aspects of production from receiving of raw material to delivery of finished goods. You are able to gain insight into the decision making flow as well as the process flow.