Waste is costly for businesses across industries. In manufacturing, idle workers, redundant processes, and excess materials drain your plant's productivity and bottom line. That’s why manufacturing facilities constantly seek innovative ways to curb these inefficiencies and improve overall production efficiency.
This is where lean manufacturing comes in.
At its core, lean manufacturing focuses on minimizing waste and maximizing value. With the advent of digital signage, these principles can be amplified.
Digital signage in manufacturing environments offers real-time data visualization, improved communication, and streamlined monitoring of key performance indicators (KPIs). This combination transforms the way manufacturing plants operate, driving production efficiency and continuous improvement to new heights.
Let’s discuss this in more detail below.
The Five Principles of Lean Manufacturing
Lean manufacturing focuses on five principles that aims to reduce waste, optimize processes, and ensure continuous improvement. These principles help lower production costs to benefit both manufacturers and customers.
The five principles of lean manufacturing are:
- Value: Identify what customers value in the product
- Value Stream: Map out all steps in the production process and eliminate non-value-adding steps
- Flow: Ensure smooth and continuous workflow without interruptions
- Pull: Produce only what is needed based on customer demand
- Perfection: Continuously improve processes to strive for perfection
How Digital Signage Supports Lean Manufacturing Principles
Now that we know what the five lean manufacturing principles are, how does digital signage support these principles exactly? How does digital signage help deliver customer-focused production systems? Let’s take a look.
1. Identifying value
Digital signage in manufacturing transforms communication for ease and convenience. Managers can use digital screens to show customer feedback, market trends, and the features customers love right on the production floor. This way, everyone knows what the customer expects and can focus on delivering just that.
2. Mapping the value stream
With digital signage, manufacturers have a dynamic, visual tool for mapping out the value stream. It shows real-time updates on process flows and highlights areas with waste or inefficiencies. Employees can see exactly where improvements are needed and understand how their tasks fit into the bigger picture.
3. Creating flow
In lean manufacturing, digital signage helps keep operations running smoothly by showing real-time data on production status, delivery and shipping, machine performance, and workflow bottlenecks. Quick updates mean immediate responses to problems, keeping the production line efficient.
4. Establishing pull
Digital signage is great for the pull principle, displaying fresh orders and inventory levels. It provides visibility into current orders, inventory statuses, and production schedules, ensuring production matches customer demand. This visibility helps avoid overproduction and minimizes waste, as employees adjust their activities based on up-to-date information.
5. Ensuring perfection
Digital signage enhances continuous improvement by displaying quality metrics and progress toward goals. It’s a platform for sharing success stories, improvement suggestions, and even training sessions. Employees see the impact of their work and are motivated to suggest and implement further improvements.
Practical Applications of Digital Signage in Lean Manufacturing
1. Ensures Real-time Data Visualization
One of the core tenets of lean manufacturing is the need for accurate information in real-time to facilitate decision-making. Here’s where digital signage excels.
Using strategically placed digital displays, manufacturers can share important updates to ensure workers are always informed. These include critical metrics such as production rates, downtime, cycle times, and quality metrics.
Manufacturers can use business intelligence (BI) dashboards to visualize complex data in easy-to-consume visuals. Market trends, firm revenue, and yearly projections can be viewed as graphs, charts, and presentations to make data interpretation easier. This allows workers and managers to identify issues quickly, respond to them proactively, and maintain optimal production efficiency.
For example, if a production line experiences an unexpected slowdown, these alerts can inform supervisors and technicians immediately. This enables swift troubleshooting and minimizes the impact on overall productivity.
2. Enhances Communication and Collaboration
In dynamic environments like manufacturing, seamless communication is crucial to ensure worker safety and operational efficiency. When workers are constantly on their toes, they need a solution that’s just as fast and efficient.
Digital signage allows manufacturers to instantly update their employees from a centralized dashboard. Whether it’s a change in production schedules, safety alerts, healthcare guidelines, or important announcements, digital signage ensures that all employees receive the same information simultaneously. This reduces the likelihood of miscommunication and ensures everyone is aligned with the company’s goals and priorities.
L Squared’s cloud-based content management system (CMS) simplifies information-sharing through its intuitive platform. With remote access, managers can update content on dynamic screens from anywhere to ensure seamless workflows.
3. Monitors Manufacturing KPIs
Monitoring manufacturing KPIs is key to ensuring continuous improvement, especially in lean manufacturing. By prominently displaying KPIs on the production floor, employees can see how their work contributes to the company’s performance and where improvements are needed. Some important metrics include overall equipment effectiveness (OEE), first-pass yield, and on-time delivery rates.
For instance, if the OEE drops below a certain threshold, digital signage can trigger alerts to inform stakeholders. It can also display actionable insights into potential causes, such as machine malfunctions or supply chain disruptions, for faster and more effective problem-solving.
Streamline Lean Manufacturing with L Squared
L Squared is a turnkey digital communications solution designed to enhance interactions with employees and customers. Our cloud-based CMS, the L Squared Hub, makes creating and managing content effortless from one easy-to-use dashboard. Just log in to our portal and start communicating more effectively today!
We take care of everything, including procuring and installing hardware through our trusted solution partners and aggregators. This means you can get up and running with zero hassle.
Got questions about the L Squared Hub or our services? Contact us anytime at info@LSquared.com. We're here to help!
