Tag Archives: Cross-Functional Team

Manufacturing can be a competitive industry. You not only need to produce innovative products that capture the market. It’s also essential to run efficient operations to keep your margins healthy. One of the elements that helps you achieve both of these is a high-quality workforce.

When your employees have the resources and skills to maintain high performance levels, you have a powerful tool to meet your company’s goals. Indeed, with continual development and nurturing, the group of professionals you cultivate can contribute to your successful growth. It’s well worth looking closer at some strategies that help you hone your workers into cohesive and productive teams.

Prioritize Communication

Any manufacturing enterprise features a range of professionals. One of the elements that helps this disparate workforce to function as a unit is solid communication. If there are hurdles to interactions, your workers are likely to be less efficient and less able to overcome challenges. Therefore, focusing on designing and implementing communication protocols is a key to better-performing teams.

The most straightforward protocols you can adopt are those that make communication easy and convenient for all staff members. This begins with establishing channels that offer multiple methods on a single platform. For instance, tools like Slack and Microsoft Teams enable staff members to direct message (DM) each other, have audio calls, and hold video conferencing all on an app they can store on their phones or computers. As a result, they can keep in regular contact with all colleagues present on the platform.

Another good step is creating an accessible organizational chart. This outlines the personnel in each department, their place in the hierarchy, the skills they have, and the best ways to connect with them. Having images of each also supports recognition when moving throughout the production floor and break spaces. Placing these org charts in each department and storing them on cloud platforms empowers workers to know who to contact whenever they need help or have questions.

You must also make it easy for workers to communicate their opinions to company leaders. Employee feedback can enhance performance by highlighting areas for practical improvement. When workers see their insights are appreciated and actioned, there can also be greater engagement and trust, which feeds into positive outcomes. Manufacturing managers need to actively reach out to staff of all levels to gain feedback, both in conversations and using surveys. Your company can also make open feedback channels available on the intranet or aforementioned communication apps.

Optimize Operations

It’s difficult to cultivate high-performing manufacturing teams if there are elements of their working processes that present hurdles. Investing in methods to optimize different aspects of your operations is essential. These enable you to develop an environment that empowers your workforce to function at its peak.

Technology plays an important role here in various ways. Some of the tools that enhance optimization include:

Data analytics

Having a thorough understanding of how efficiently each element of your business is running is central to making informed operational adjustments. There are cloud data analytics platforms on the market that track the metrics of all aspects of your manufacturing operations, from staff behavior to the waste your production processes generate. You can further optimize this by placing devices in the Internet of Things (IoT) throughout your facility, so that embedded sensors can collect accurate data to share with your analytics tools.

Automation

The manufacturing industry has long embraced automation. However, it’s important not to simply limit it to dangerous or precision production processes. You can also consider automating certain administrative and management tasks. Many repetitive parts of jobs, like data entry, invoicing, and inventory management can be performed by artificial intelligence (AI) driven software. This optimizes your human staff’s available time, enabling them to concentrate on more complex parts of the business.

Remember, too, that investing in your staff’s development is also a vital optimization practice. Training levels up your workers’ skill sets, allowing them to operate more efficiently and innovatively. Your investment also makes workers feel valued, which may boost their connections with your business, which can drive their productivity.

Encourage Collaboration

While each employee is an individual professional, developing cohesive teams is key to high performance in manufacturing. When you establish protocols and tools that encourage positive collaborations, there’s the chance to generate results from the collective that you wouldn’t get from individuals alone.

For instance, during the ideation phase of projects, using mood boards can offer opportunities for teams to work together on a shared creative document. These materials involve the team contributing images, colors, and even text to evoke the emotions around the project and spark concepts that lead to the final product. When you make digital mood boards stored on a cloud platform, you can empower different members of the team to provide contributions, no matter what department they work in or even if they’re operating remotely. It helps everyone to feel a meaningful part of the business and maintains team cohesion.

Wherever possible, arrange for members of each team to engage in collaborations with diverse populations of professionals. Cross-departmental projects and even fun team-building activities give your staff chances to work with people outside of their usual circle. This exposure to different perspectives and experiences with people of different abilities, seniority, and cultures can be a vital source of development that boosts future collaborations and innovations.

Conclusion

Building high-performing manufacturing teams influences your success. Your efforts should include a range of measures, from protocols that bolster communication to adopting tools that optimize working practices, among others. Don’t forget to seek your workers’ feedback on this matter, too. They are likely to have keen insights into what hurdles to performance are in their jobs and how to overcome them.

*This article is written by Ainsley Lawrence. View more of Ainsley’s articles here.

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