To streamline operations, manufacturers are looking to measure success based on production capability and flexibility rather than efficiency and production capacity.
The trend is to move away from a maketo-stock manufacturing approach and mass production, and embrace more of a quality-driven, make-to-order approach to meet defined and specific customer needs.
As a part of this shift, plant floor staff are becoming more ‘knowledge workers’ than operators, not only having a technical understanding of the machines they run, but also having the analytical and decisionmaking skills to make adjustments to machine operation to support the most efficient means of delivering the products required.