Four key actions to strengthen process resilience and drive productivity

Richard Jeffers, Director of Maintenance Solutions at RS Components, shares findings from the second report in its Resilience Index series, The Resilience Index: Process. It reveals four key actions senior engineers can take to build process resilience and drive productivity.

1. Continue to innovate. Senior engineers should seek to build a network of peers and partners (such as RS Components) to help understand the opportunities and challenges offered by emerging technologies. 
   
   Keeping an open mind to new ways to solve problems is key. While tried and tested methods can be the best, in many cases new technologies can support solving the problems in a cheaper or faster way.
   
   Looking to invest in small scale, reversible pilots to understand the benefits of emerging technology, without the risk of being at the bleeding edge of innovation, is also a practical option to boost process resilience through innovation.
   
   
2. Build capacity back-up. Many companies still need to improve the reliability and robustness of their processes by building in redundancy support so systems can withstand unpredictable and unplanned failures. There must be prioritisation of the duplication of critical components or functions of a system to increase reliability.  However, being efficient is still important, as carrying too much overhead will also impair resilience.
   
   Redundancy planning must be risk based. Analyse processes and risk assess what could cause issues and the financial impact of them occurring. Then insure against them through building process redundancy, investing, improving asset reliability, contingency planning, and building partnerships.
   
   
3. Think differently about outsourcing. Outsourcing strategies need to focus on the benefits that can be gained alongside potential cost savings.
   
   Strategies should carefully consider if outsourcing decisions free-up enough internal capacity to help the organisation concentrate on core competencies or allow for quicker adaptations or transformations. The default position of taking processes in-house to drive cost efficiencies needs to be continually challenged, and the holistic benefits of a strategic outsourcing approach closely scrutinised.
   
   
4. Continuously improve. Invest in a commitment to build and embed a continuous improvement culture, and the relentless identification and eradication of losses or inefficiencies. Crucially, acknowledge that small, iterative changes over the long-term will have a compound effect on processes. As an ongoing obligation, it requires active leadership from the top to empower bottom-up improvement.
   
   Examine basic processes and aim to incrementally enhance efficiencies and effectiveness. This can be applied to single or multiple processes within the organisation, including procurement strategies; stock holding; energy conversion and consumption; proactive maintenance regimes across the plant, or even workforce patterns.
   
   Learn more about the different continuous improvement techniques, such as Lean and Six Sigma and develop a strategy to build a continuous improvement mindset in operations.

It is estimated that transforming manufacturing resilience in the UK could add £26bn of productivity value to the economy, and it’s clear, that strengthening process resilience has an important role to play in achieving this.

At RS Components, we aim to support senior engineers seeking to improve their company’s resilience through a culture of continuous improvement with a suite of customised services and solutions. Acknowledging that our customers will be at different stages on their continuous improvement journey, we offer bespoke services and support to suit individual needs, so, no matter what stage they are at, engineers within any industry can strengthen their process resilience and reap the rewards that brings.

For a copy of The Resilience Index: Process report, click here.

*The Resilience Index is a comprehensive and unique investigation of six datasets from the past 20 years covering manufacturing investment, productivity, and employment to track resilience across some of the UK’s most prominent industries.

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Content published by Professional Engineering does not necessarily represent the views of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers.