Follow these 5 tips to help your manufacturing company start the path toward operational excellence. These operational excellence principles are reasons why MET Plastics has seen success throughout its 40 year history.

1. 5 Tips
To Achieve Operational
Excellence in Manufacturing
By MET Plastics Inc.

2. Invest in New
Technology & Equipment
Investing in new technologies and equipment
demonstrates a company's commitment to
continually improve. New technologies expand
capabilities and allow a company to attract its
ideal customers.
MET Plastics is currently investing in automation
technology for downstream assembly operations,
additional molding machines to expand its
cleanroom molding capabilities, and CNC
milling machinery as well as EDM equipment.
1 5 Tips to Achieve Operational Excellence in Manufacturing

3. Foster a Culture of
Continuous Improvement
Employee relationships are pertinent to achieving
operational excellence. Sharing performance goals
with
employees is a way for them to take an active part in
continuous improvement activities. Foster those
relationships by working as a team and leading by
example.
MET Plastics emphasizes working as a team to
achieve
monthly goals. The goals are displayed on the shop
floor
and are updated daily to keep everyone motivated.
Rewarding achievements shows that employee
efforts are
appreciated. Employees who feel their hard work is
acknowledged are more likely to genuinely strive to
maintain those goals.
2 5 Tips to Achieve Operational Excellence in Manufacturing

4. Benchmark Best Practices
Learning from others in the industry is a smart way
to achieve operational excellence. Adopt best
practices from the leaders who have proven success
implementing new and different ideas.
Through its involvement in MAPP (Manufacturers
Association for Plastics Processors) and AMBA
(American Mold Builders Association), MET Plastics
has hosted and regularly attends plant tours to
benchmark its operations with other injection
molders and moldbuilders. MET also participates in
industry surveys and uses the data to develop
improvement opportunities in its own operation.
3 5 Tips to Achieve Operational Excellence in Manufacturing

5. Invest in a Superior (ERP)
Enterprise Resource Planning
System
Even if a company is small, it cannot be managed
simply by email and phone calls. Keeping track of
information and accessibility to that information is
especially important for the manufacturing
industry.
MET Plastics focuses on lower volume, high mix
programs. With over 500 active parts and over
2000
BOMs to juggle, the IQMS ERP system is used to
ensure the continual delivery of high quality
products. The software is used to manage the
material planning, production scheduling, and
delivery process. Using the software helps MET
achieve their 99.5%+ average on-time delivery
rating,
despite the high complexity of their product mix.
4 5 Tips to Achieve Operational Excellence in Manufacturing

6. Encourage Employees to
Make Suggestions
Not only will they get a voice within the
organization, management will receive valuable
suggestions for improvement from people with
first-hand experience. Again, fostering a culture of
continuous improvement and emphasizing team
work can lead to opportunities for improvement.
Part of MET's daily floor meeting often includes a
brainstorm session with production team members
to determine what can be done to improve a
process. Team members regularly make
suggestions to improve a process, whether it be
process setting adjustments or changes to the flow
of a product. One member recently suggested
combining two operations into single operation,
which has resulted in an annual time savings of
more than 100 hours.
5 5 Tips to Achieve Operational Excellence in Manufacturing