When you want to win, don’t settle.

By Neil Parton, managing director, Elumatec.

It’s easy enough being in business when conditions are favourable, but this is an environment where it takes an engaged and determined team to thrive.

From supply chain issues to labour shortages, from raw material costs to cyber threats, manufacturing is up against it. Every day, I speak to people grappling with the problems – many of which are global issues and largely beyond their control.

But the word ‘largely’ is important. There is almost always something that can be done. And in the famous case of the turnaround in the fortunes of the Great Britain cycling team, even marginal improvements can make the difference between winning and losing.

I believe that if we become fixated on a dramatic turnaround – which may be near impossible to bring about – we can miss out on a whole raft of small, but still effective, improvements. But spotting the potential of the small improvements isn’t always easy.

What’s more, even if you’ve identified a process that would benefit from a tweak, when faced with multiple competing demands, there’s a big temptation to put the tweak onto the back burner. And when it’s there, it stays there, waiting for the mythical future date when it finds its way to the top of the to-do list.

Imagine you produce precision components and have managed to get your reject rate down to 2%. The industry norm is perhaps double your rate, so you’re feeling good about it and when the rate creeps up to 2.2%, and then 2.3%, you can still legitimately claim you’re nailing your KPIs and performing better than the competition.

But if that’s how you’re thinking, you need to stop congratulating yourself. You’re going backwards, failing to address both increased costs and a loss of productivity.

Think about this: what if the fix was remarkably simple? What if the scrap rate increased because you started sourcing tooling from a new supplier? Or maybe, in attempting to save 10% on consumables expenditure, you changed your daily routine and didn’t spot the consequences for output quality?

In any manufacturing setting, there is a constant interplay of factors. For example, a customer changes a key order, throwing your schedule into chaos. You need to keep the contract, so you prioritise the job, and do your best to placate all those customers whose orders will now be delayed. Believing something like this is an unavoidable issue is, in effect, settling for less than your best.

Going back to those cyclists, it’s putting in a lot of effort to finish at the back of the field, when you could have taken home the gold.

At the back of the field is the company whose machinery stands idle while jobs are manually rescheduled. It doesn’t have to be like that. Elumatec software would do the task in a trice and deliver the optimum machine utilisation.

Often, we find organisations reluctant to embrace a tech solution, possibly fearing they are deskilling their staff. Yet those same staff fear that by not keeping up with advanced CNC programming and connectivity, their employability is at risk. Valued staff are often lost in such situations.

Also, struggling at the back of the field is the business where both scrap rates and production costs are creeping up. Mindful of the bottom line, a curb on discretionary expenditure is implemented, and routine machinery servicing is put on hold. With the equipment un-serviced, production tolerances begin to slip, scrap rates climb, and the eventual breakdown will cost the company more than it has saved. When you do the maths, it’s obvious.

The guys I spoke to at an event recently weren’t entirely convinced it was worth their effort to still be in the race. As the market for their product had shifted, they had machinery and labour both underutilised. They were losing skilled staff and in doing so sacrificing their ability to grab the opportunities that still existed for them in their existing market. This further weakened their ability to branch out into new products and service new markets.

The thing is markets will always evolve, technology will advance, and costs will rise, but where there is a will, most issues can be tackled, and you can get from the back of the pack to the podium.

Decide that you won’t settle. Yes, you may still have to accept that some things can’t be done on day one but don’t shelve them. And don’t be afraid to ask for help. At Elumatec, we often solve issues, surprising our customers with the ease of the fix.