Report highlights actions for process resilience

Independent research commissioned by RS Components (RS) has uncovered four key actions that senior engineers should consider taking to build process resilience across their organisations.

The research findings are presented in the second report in RS Components’ Resilience Index series – The Resilience Index: Process – How a focus on process can build better resilience and drive productivity. The company says that, if taken, these actions will help protect companies, push them to think and act differently and establish a culture of continuous improvement, which will be the foundation for future process improvements, stability, and transformation.

The four actions are:

1. Continue to innovate. The UK is ranked third in the world and first in Europe for innovation (measured by patent registration 2000-2015). With a strong research and development heritage, it is vital UK manufacturers continue to invest in process improvements across all areas of their operation.
   Senior engineers should seek to build a network of peers and partners, keep an open mind to new ways to solve problems and invest in small scale, reversible pilots to understand the benefits of emerging technology.
2. Build capacity back-up. Many companies still need to improve the reliability and robustness of their processes by building in redundancy support so systems can withstand unpredictable and unplanned failures. There must be prioritisation of the duplication of critical components or functions of a system to increase reliability. However, being efficient is still important, as carrying too much overhead will also impair resilience.
3. Think differently about outsourcing. Outsourcing strategies need to focus on the benefits that can be gained alongside potential cost savings. Strategies should carefully consider if outsourcing decisions free up enough internal capacity to help the organisation concentrate on core competencies or allow for quicker adaptations or transformations.
4. Continuously improve. Invest in a commitment to build and embed a continuous improvement culture and the relentless identification and eradication of losses or inefficiencies. Crucially, acknowledge that small, iterative changes over the long-term will have a compound effect on processes.

Richard Jeffers, Director of Maintenance Solutions at RS Components, comments: “It is estimated that transforming manufacturing resilience in the UK could add £26bn of productivity value to the economy, and it’s clear that strengthening process resilience has an important role to play in achieving this.”

The report can be accessed at: http://bit.ly/RSRIPro