Pro Tip: Understanding maximum capacity, speed and other measurable factors is what contributes to the successful output of a production line.

Everybody wants to run their production lines fast. The front office expects more output no matter what level you are at in the moment.

Some on the receiving end of these messages tend to overreact and try to make things happen. This is sometimes due to fear, sometimes due to wanting to please and other times because they don’t know better.

Each of these reactions can actually cause more trouble.

When optimizing a production line’s output, you must find the sweet spot. Just like with a golf club, when you hit that sweet spot, you are “grooving it” as they say.

On the other hand, when you toe or heel a golf ball, you don’t know where it’s going. but you do know it isn’t delivering the result you want.

So how do you find the sweet spot with a production line? How do you translate that same performance across different SKUs that might run on that same line?

You must first establish a baseline. Measure all the key process points to understand how they perform. You are looking for the maximum performance out of each element of the line.

Then take each key process point and understand exactly what its maximum capacity, speed or other measurable factor is that contributes to the output of the entire line.

Once you understand the limits, conduct a bottleneck analysis to identify the one key point in the process that is holding everything else back.

You cannot make your line outperform the identified bottleneck, so you build everything else around it.

Once you identify the bottleneck, determine if there is anything you can do to increase its contribution to output.

When you have exhausted all ideas on the bottleneck, you are now set to adjust all other process contributors to meet its capability.

There are times when you find a way to unlock more from the identified bottleneck, which then pushes the work to the next bottleneck point. Once you get through this exercise, you are ready to set the line for its maximum output.

Sometimes the result means that lines are actually running slower in some places to get faster overall.

Here are a few things to consider:

• You can’t make more dough if you can’t get the flour there fast enough.
• You can’t stick more pans in an oven if you don’t speed up the bake time.
• You can’t stuff more bread in the bag if your packaging systems are maxed out.

When you finally find the sweet spot where the line likes to run and you’re delivering high efficiencies, low waste and minimal downtime, rerun this exercise and maybe you can squeak out just a little bit more.

Jeff Dearduff is owner of JED Manufacturing Services who provides “Bakery Guy Tips” to those everyday people working in production, maintenance and engineering. Connect with him on LinkedIn.