Many SME’s struggle for survival. Staff cost are rising, if staff at all is easy to find these days for companies in the making industry. Being able to meet the clients’ price expectation is difficult which means that high levels of production efficiency and quality of the production should be met (OEE).

The Lean Manufacturing concept was originally introduced in Japanese production companies. Toyota became a world leader with this philosophy that is aimed at minimizing any kind of waste on the shop floor. Many textbooks and experts on the topic are available to assist you on the road to being lean. It all starts with the availability of data from the work-shop.

Also, there is the (industrial) Internet of Things that we hear a lot about. With the IoT you can collect the data from your production equipment in real time. Again, many systems and experts ready to help.

Knowing when and why machines stop manufacturing and tracing your waste electricity will help you saving substantial percentages of your operating cost.

Small companies in making industries, such as injection moulding and mould making, often run an operation with up to a few dozens of machines. Embarking on a journey to use modern technology for data collection as a first step towards lean manufacturing may seem discouraging from both the financial and management effort point of view. Bespoke systems are expensive and involve a lot of time and effort to get them up and running.