Lean manufacturing in sluggish and prosperous times

Our lean manufacturing practices come in very handy when there’s a shift in the speed of business. Fortunately, the new year sees a burst of growth continuing, specifically with component manufacturing for the semiconductor industry.

Since late summer, we’ve been busy with new projects that look to carry on at least through the first quarter of 2020. We experienced record-breaking numbers by the close of 2019, and we hope you experienced a similar cycle, too.

We’re excited that the semiconductor industry shows no signs of slowing, which means we don’t either.

Lean practices for busy days and leaner days

With in-house cross-training, we easily shift roles on the production floor, dependent on current needs. When one task is complete, our team members have the expertise to shift to the next. This practice keeps headcount down, reduces overhead and maintains quality—and in leaner times, it also means no one stays concerned about layoffs. Our team is nimble, happy and hungry. Axenics’ lean manufacturing approach ensures we complete your projects efficiently and also to the top degree of quality.

We have closed up shop between the holidays in the past, but not in 2019, there was too much work to do so.

Much of the manufacturing news in the media last year was focused on tariffs and how they were affecting some in a variety of industries. Fortunately, we only experienced a small pang of nerves because our predictors foresaw the uptick in work. The prediction was correct – and fortuitous.

Something we do see in the news, which is timely and accurate, is that there’s a continued shortage of qualified manufacturing technicians available. Fortunately, we have a fully-stocked team at the moment, all of them cross-trained for multiple competencies.

The cross-training is a boon for us when we switch gears, as we’ve done recently with this business shift. Also, before bringing on full-time members of the team, we like to offer overtime to our techs to ensure the increase in business isn’t a fluke that disappears overnight. No one wants to do layoffs.

It would be great to see some comments below on how you keep a solid team going when there’s a lack of highly-skilled manufacturing professionals in the job market.

In the coming weeks and months, we’re all going to see multiple stories about the economy coming back and big builds for manufacturing. Don’t forget, you saw it here first!

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