Design your operations for maximum effect
At a high level, productivity improvement is designing each area of activity in your business well to make sure they achieve better business outcomes with the same or fewer resources.
Make health and safety front of mind. This way, you will:
- keep your team safe
- comply with health and safety rules
- make your business a great place to work.
Plan for improvement
With a little planning and maybe some outside help, you can find that happy balance of improving things without disrupting your daily business activities too much.
Make time for improvements
Improving productivity will increase the efficiency and effectiveness of your operations, so you should prioritise strategic improvement – even when you’re busy.
Start small
Start with simple changes. They can often result in highly efficient outcomes.
Improving your productivity can give you more capacity to focus on other things, as well as more improvements, to keep the ball rolling.
Consider getting some help
You can’t have expertise across all areas of your business, so getting some external help can be a good idea. Experts can carefully assess and advise on any changes to processes or technology to match your business goals.
Ways to improve productivity
These are the four main ways to improve productivity in your business.
Measure your improvement
You can’t improve it if you can’t measure it. Measure even the smaller things that can lead to improvement.
To identify processes that aren’t working and improve them, you need to:
- understand every step
- document them
- use relevant key performance indicators (KPIs) to measure against.
Measure only what’s relevant to your business and use the data to make sure decisions are accurate. Don’t rush it. Spend the time understanding what to measure now instead of changing things down the track.
Remember, the goal is to make changes and improvements, not just measure processes.
Use lean manufacturing
There are many methods to improve your productivity, like lean manufacturing or Six Sigma.
There are plenty of specialists to help if your team needs that expertise or time to put these methods into practice – and some help is even government funded.
Add digital tech
New technologies can be beneficial for efficiency, quality and cost reductions.
New technologies include:
- 3D printing
- artificial intelligence (AI)
- Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT)
- robotics.
When you consider adding new technologies, you should:
- plan carefully
- invest in developing your people’s skills
- take a strategic approach to integrating the tech.
Train your workers
Getting your people up to speed with new things you bring into the business is essential for improving productivity.
Train them and give them the skills, knowledge and confidence so they can adapt to new processes and handle new technologies.
Consider investing in things like:
- continuous learning
- training in other areas of your business, outside their roles
- technology-specific programmes.
You’ll get a confident workforce who know they’re valued and feel like they’re constantly learning. This is a great way to improve productivity and boost morale across your business.
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