The last thing you want is something to disrupt normal business operations. Something that could have been prevented.
As the person who is supposed to ensure everything runs smoothly, you know it’s only a matter of time before your boss shows up at your side with the long list of questions about why production has stopped. If production has stopped, business has come to a screeching halt and key stakeholders aren’t going to be happy – everyone from your supervisor to your distributor to the end customer. Not to mention there could be a high financial impact to the company.
Moral of the story? Be proactive.
Assess your equipment and processes and prevent disruptions and downtime to your operations.
REVIEW & DOCUMENT PROCESSES AND/OR CREATE SOPs
Start your assessment by walking through each process from start to finish. Document the key steps and don’t skimp on the details. Be explicit and specific. You don’t want to only graze over how the process works. You also want to identify what and who is involved. Consider writing it as though the person reading it were someone totally new and unfamiliar who had to step in during a crisis.
Or someone new to the job. The better your documentation, the better someone else can assist during a case of downtime, especially to help troubleshoot. Essentially, you’re creating SOPs. If your company already has SOPs, perform an audit. Make sure they are up to date. If they aren’t, revise them so they’re current. Either way, when your process documentation is complete, have at least one other member of your team review to ensure you haven’t missed any key steps or details.
IDENTIFY RISKS
Next, you’ll want to identify risks. With the processes documented, ask yourselves and team members key questions about those processes:
- What happens if [inset critical piece of equipment] goes down?
- What is the immediate action I or a team member need to take?
- Who is the on-hand expert who can troubleshoot the error/issue?
- If we have no on-hand expert to troubleshoot, who do we contact?
- What do we do if we can’t troubleshoot?
Consider adding the answers to these questions to your process documentation or in the event you have SOPs, create an FAQ document to supplement them. Learn more about risk management to inform the questions you should be asking yourself (and your team) and the proactive steps you’ll take to ensure all your bases are covered.
INVENTORY YOUR ASSETS
Finally, use your newly documented processes and risk assessment to identify the key assets involved. Assets range from the equipment and machinery, to the integrated software applications, to the human resources (team members/staff) involved in a given process. In performing an inventory of these assets determine what needs they may have.
The bottom line: Be proactive. Downtime isn’t the time to ask, “What could I have done to prevent this?”
Don’t wait until something breaks or goes offline and creates major business disruptions to determine if it could have been avoided. Start now by assessing your processes and equipment and determining the gaps. If you lack the confidence to perform your own assessment, contact a certified service provider to come on site and do this for you. They’ll provide recommendations that you can then turn into your action plan. We provide this very service. So, if you didn’t know where you were going to look for this kind of thing, you’re in luck. You’re already where you need to be. Your first step in being proactive was in reading this post. Your next is to contact us. 
