The manufacturing industry is among the busiest. This is more so when the product is a fast-selling one, like those in the food industry. The success of such industries relies on certain key aspects that are intertwined in the operations cycle.
One way to know if your operations are successful may depend on whether a certain aspect of your workflow is at its optimum or not. Tackling the factors involved in the food industry, you will see how monitoring these aspects using a good KPI software can do so much in improving business operations.
Count of Products
Count refers to the number of produced products. Each company may have a different system on how they would measure this factor. Some manufacturers would count the products produced per employee per shift. Others would total the number of products produced per shift without individual references. Most companies, however, use the first method to foster a competitive spirit among employees.
Ratio of Rejects
No system is perfect, so even the most technologically advanced manufacturing system will face product rejects. This refers to products that could not be sold. Either the packaging is damaged or the goods somehow did not meet quality standards.
The standards whether to reject a product or not would highly depend on the type of product being manufactured. For instance, if it’s canned goods, bulges on cans need to be rejected. If it is a raw food, molds or signs of discoloration must be rejected as well. Knowing these would now help you determine whether you produce an adequate amount of goods versus the rejects.
Speed of Production
This is also one aspect that KPI software monitors. There should be a consistency between the speed by which a certain number of products is produced per employees and at a certain period. These include the quality of the output against the speed of production. Too much focus on quality reduces speed, which results in reduced profit. Too much focus on speed, on the other hand, can affect the quality.
Downtime
Considered as the most important KPI metrics to track, the goal of each manufacturer is to decrease downtime. This means that you should know how long it takes to repair a machine or replace its parts. This way, management would know how to cope with such a downtime. Instead of waiting for machines to break down, which will lead to longer downtime, it would be best to replace old equipment and to promote regular maintenance.
These are some performance indicators that the food manufacturing industry must be mindful of. Proper monitoring of these indicators can lead to smooth and better operations. As a result, you can expect more profits.