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Lessons Learned: Maximizing your packaging assets

More than 200 industry professionals respond to the question, "In what creative ways is your company making use of underutilized personnel or machinery?"

In a recent Packworld.com survey, we received 200+ responses to the question, "In what creative ways is your company making use of underutilized personnel or machinery?" Here are some of the responses, edited for clarity.

Responses related to cross-training were the most frequently mentioned:

• We allow no overtime, and move personnel from four plant locations to where they are needed. One day, a truck driver may have to be a forklift driver or work on a packaging line. This utilizes the people you have and possibly will eliminate the need to lay off employees.
• Those who have time between jobs will test equipment operation, conduct shop inventories of materials and equipment or tooling, and put their own workstations in order.
• Through technology, creating flexibility in manufacturing, multiple products, grooming people to build multiple skills, etc. We have done more cross-training in all areas of the company to better utilize talent and allow for better planning if cutbacks are necessary. We have managed the workforce to keep the best workers on board.
• Personnel are being asked to wear different hats and take on more responsibility.

Further personnel-related thoughts:

• Every employee is asked to do more with less; even nontechnical employees are learning systems and how to use equipment that they never needed to know in the past.
• Using workers to investigate damage incidents to help cut these types of costs.
• We always find ways to utilize employees for future efficiencies in manufacturing such as cleaning, inspection, preventive maintenance, upgrades, etc.
• We recently used plant operators rather than contractors during a plant renovation project.
• We utilize our employees for improvement projects throughout our facility instead of contracting the work out.

Equipment machinations
Some machinery-focused responses included the following:

• We will be cleaning up stored or unused equipment and putting it up for sale if it is functional, or we will be selling it for parts.
• Repurposing equipment, refurbishing old and used equipment, and offering setup ... Read more

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