5 steps to maximum efficiency

It's difficult for SMEs to prepare for the ever-changing economic conditions that we have experienced for the last two years. With this in mind, many business owners are asking themselves the question: To what extent do increasing productivity and training staff go hand in hand? Does operational utilisation throw a spanner in the works of lifelong learning?

SMEs face major challenges

Limited availability of resources, long delivery times, sudden rises in material prices, bottlenecks here and there — the coronavirus pandemic has made things turbulent for many companies. While some were flooded with orders and had to put in a lot of overtime, others were forced to apply for reduced working hour schemes and had to think twice about every expenditure. The MEM sector was already suffering from problems before the pandemic, such as the shortage of skilled workers.

The demands placed on companies remain challenging. The market insists on short delivery times, competitive prices, flawless quality and maximum flexibility. To face these challenges, we need to look at three proven approaches:

Promoting income-enhancing topics (digitalising, increasing productivity) → SmartFactory
Optimisation/standardisation of processes (with consultation and implementation support)
Regular staff training (internal/external training sessions and workplace design) → LEA (Currently only available in German)

Economic training programmes

For business owners, the well-being of their employees is a matter of the heart; they want to be successful with their staff and shape their future together. When it comes to building up your staff, there's no way around it — even small businesses should be constantly promoting training and personnel development. After all, digitalisation requires new skills as well as increasingly dual functions that create additional flexibility in a manufacturing company. Employees are, in a positive sense, like machines: They must be brought up to date with updates and upgraded on an ongoing basis.

But how can we take proper care of training in such ever-changing economic conditions? What training programmes justify an investment in the long term? And what if employees leave the company after their training?

The counter question is: what if they don't train and stay at the company? The ideal solution is to provide training formats with a good cost-benefit balance that do not place an undue burden on ongoing operations.

Benefit from targeted training

Methodology training sessions that link theory and practice in the same way as the dual education system are particularly sustainable. Reto Gruber, Lean Consultant at Brütsch/Rüegger Tools, explains: "Sending employees to external training is a good thing. Practical workshops held in-house are better." This is because learning that is implemented immediately on the basis of current projects leads to greater success and immediately noticeable benefits. Even small steps can have a big effect.

Brütsch/Rüegger Tools has the expertise to accompany the transfer of knowledge to employees with methods such as 5S, kaizen, CIP, shop floor management, setup optimisation and kanban. "We help companies with economic and operational implementation campaigns. In addition, we make the changes measurable using clear metrics so that we can see what effects they really bring!" To this end, Brütsch/Rüegger Tools recommends the following tried and tested five-step procedure:

Analyse and assess the situation (Performance Check)
Plan an implementation programme
Implement the first lighthouse projects together with employees
Practice-oriented method training with parallel implementation in-house
Measure changes using metrics

Take the first step with a free Performance Check (Currently only available in German) and let us show you where the greatest potential can be developed in your process landscape.

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5 steps to maximum efficiency

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