Lean Process Engineering in Manufacturing

Lean Engineering with Engex | Engex Engineering — Lean Engineering with Engex

Lean process engineering is a concept that begins with knowledge, but it should always bring tangible, measurable outcomes. Depending on your individual company, this could be wide-sweeping efficiencies or gradual improvements in waste management and productivity for example.

However, becoming truly lean is rarely something internal decision-makers can achieve without expert perspectives and solutions.

This is especially true of companies engaged in single continuous process manufacturing – such as chemical and biochemical firms. They know how easy it is to get into a ‘groove’, with habitual work practices. Meeting deadlines and working to capacity, can leave little space for experimentation and adaptation.

This makes outsourcing lean process engineering evaluation a sound investment. It can often be the only way to find ways to do things quicker, better and with less waste or to simply coax greater capacity from an existing production system.

In fact, all manufacturing companies need lean process engineering insights, if they are to manage skyrocketing energy bills and become more waste-conscious and sustainable.

Let’s explore those deliverables from lean process engineering specialists in more detail.

Improvements with tangible ROI

The most obvious advantage of outside help in evaluating and applying lean process engineering principles is that you can use this engineering expertise to find operational cost savings.

Many companies have invested piecemeal in tools and technologies over a number of years and use highly traditional team structures and leadership concepts to underpin their processes.

Shining a new light on those, using advanced engineering consultancy services, can highlight shortfalls, overlaps and gaps you are unaware of. As well as ways to streamline what you do, to get more from your personnel, equipment and engineering tech.

This can lead to tangible cost savings, particularly energy efficiency measures, and better raw materials management and usage. Usually achieved by process visualization and data analysis.

Boosting engineering intelligence

Lean process engineering is wholly reliant on creating change and improvement by using in-depth business intelligence relevant to engineering design.

Bringing in experts ensures that companies can build up a thorough overview of their entire setup. From inventory control to time-motion parameters on the shop floor, to how the completed stock is packed and transported. Issues such as overproduction, wait times and response to errors can be among the topics that are studied in depth.

This level of engineering intelligence pivots on having integrated data management systems in your company, that lean process engineering specialists use as a platform for enhanced production transparency and control.

In other words, they use data you probably already have, to find solutions you need, to help you remain competitive, or to grow your business with confidence.

What is waste in lean engineering terms?

It’s worth emphasizing that some of the outcomes from using lean process engineering consultants are not ‘innovations’. They can take you back down to basic waste management principles – the sort of efficiencies that have become overlooked as your organisation evolved and coped with market pressures.

This branch of engineering focuses on industrial tasks, activities and operations. Using lean engineering principles, efficiencies can be identified in any or all aspects of that. In other words, specialists can find a waste of time, motion, materials or energy – or even wasted opportunities and preventable obstacles to your productivity.

For example, they could show you how to minimise time wasted due to underutilised staff and machines, or ways to avoid preventable defects that waste materials.

Transformation, from outsourcing lean process engineering adherence

As mentioned above, some of the improvements possible from introducing lean process engineering principles are incremental and about finding a series of ways to achieve greater profitability.

However, some specialists in this field – like Engex – have the ability and technology to help companies see their entire business operation in a new way. This can result in wide-sweeping changes to how personnel, machinery, technology, time, materials and energy are managed.

For instance, some companies embrace a switch to cellular manufacturing, to support better informed and more efficient team dynamics. This can mean short-term upheaval to reconfigure machinery and workstations into versatile ‘cells’. However, it can unlock significant new capacity and capabilities.

Another lean process engineering concept that can be transformational is setting new boundaries for work in progress. Sometimes, the best way to reduce wasted material and energy, and produce a better-quality product, is to streamline and simplify the WIP ratio. This can be the ideal way to eradicate bottlenecks too.

What does lean engineering mean to YOU?

As outlined above, the basis of becoming leaner is to focus on Leadership, People, Processes, Tools & Technology and Engineering Intelligence.

Finding the right strategy to achieve that, and to apply it logically, often requires the best engineering solutions consultancy. Engex has the experience and expertise to put solid meat on the principles of lean process engineering.