Manufacturing practices often create lots of waste. This often leads to a range of problems, including negative environmental impacts and issues with manufacturing waste disposal. Let’s look at how green manufacturing and sustainable industrial practices can improve your plant’s operations.
Key Takeaways
This post covers the following topics:
- How manufacturers create waste
- How manufacturers can reduce waste
- Create a factory waste management plan
- Use recycled materials
- Reduce the use of packaging materials
- Take advantage of automation
- Purchase reusable equipment
- How Closed Loop helps you reduce manufacturing waste
- How we improve our offerings and processes
How Do Manufacturers Create Waste?
Manufacturers create waste every time they make products for their business. Some waste is necessary, like the waste created when you manufacture your product packaging. All other types of waste, however, are not. These are called pure waste, which involves wasting the following components of the manufacturing process:
- Inventory: Inventory waste occurs when you keep excess products or raw materials because you don’t want to run out of them.
- Motion: This type of manufacturing waste happens when machinery or operators use too many motions to complete their manufacturing tasks.
- Transportation: Transportation waste happens when you take unnecessary steps to deliver your products to their destination.
- Production: Production waste is when you make too many products or product parts that end up not being used. This can also contribute to inventory waste.
- Processing: This type of manufacturing waste occurs when machine operators or other employees take too much time to create a product or its components.
- Defects: This is when defects occur in components or finished products, making a product unusable and contributing to the other types of waste described above.
All of these contribute to environmental problems, reduced productivity, higher costs, and more. Getting rid of these types of manufacturing waste can help you streamline your manufacturing process with more cost-effective and sustainable procedures.
How Can Manufacturers Reduce Waste?
Manufacturers can take several steps to reduce waste in their facilities, including:
Create a Factory Waste Management Plan
If you know your plant creates large amounts of waste, analyze where the waste occurs. For example, your plant may have lots of production and inventory waste, or it may have lots of motion and transportation waste. Your waste management plan should address the exact sources of waste in your facility and help you take a practical approach to reducing manufacturing waste.
Use Recycled Materials
If you always use virgin materials for your products, you could be using up important natural resources like wood or water when you don’t have to. Recycled materials help you use fewer raw materials to create your products, which leads to less waste in landfills. Recycled materials often work great in product packaging as well as the products themselves.
Reduce the Use of Packaging Materials
Your product packaging may involve many materials and components, but consider whether they’re all necessary. By reducing the amount of materials in your packaging, you could also reduce production, process, and motion waste throughout your facility.
Take Advantage of Automation
Machine automation often reduces motion and processing waste in manufacturing facilities. But how do you invest in automation? The simplest way is to find software to implement for your facility’s machinery. Automation software finds the simplest and most efficient steps to complete a machine’s tasks, saving you time and money on extra motions and processes.
Purchase Reusable Equipment
If you’re throwing out disposable gloves, aprons, and other personal protective equipment (PPE) in your manufacturing facility, you’re missing out on a prime opportunity for waste reduction. Reusable PPE lowers processing waste by allowing your employees to use the equipment multiple times without having to throw it out. Reusable absorbents like mats, rags, and wipers also reduce waste in this area. Overall, reusable equipment like the kind Closed Loop offers goes a long way towards reducing wasted materials and processes in your facility.