Technological audit
Why does the company need an audit of technological processes?
All fish processors work approximately according to a similar technology for processing caught fish, but each implements it with different efficiency due to a set of objective reasons (location, technical equipment, training of personnel or key personnel, established views of personnel on the correctness of operations, etc.).
But if the manager becomes at some point urgent tasks for:
- increase in labor productivity and output volume;
- reducing the cost of production;
- development of new types of products;
- increase the flow rate in storage locations.
He will get the impression that only fish with a greasy consistency of meat comes to his sites, from which only minced meat can be made; or there is a feeling of dissatisfaction with some operations inside the plant; lack of resources for operations or an understanding comes of the unacceptability of increasing costs for individual processes. So this manager, for sure, needs an audit of the technological process.
By definition, a technological audit of production is an audit of the company’s production and technological complex, an assessment of its potential. As a result of this comprehensive study , the following are identified:
- strengths and weaknesses of the company’s production process;
- specific recommendations on changing regulations or organization of work are being formed;
- if necessary, recommendations are issued to improve the production base, purchase new equipment;
- application of innovative fish processing technologies.
We believe that the main goal for the customer is to identify weaknesses and develop the simplest and most effective ways to overcome them.
The goals and objectives of technological audit often differ and depend on several parameters: the scope of activity, the scale of the enterprise, the needs of the customer, the necessary depth of analysis of the tasks set by the customer.
Usually, an engineering company is invited to conduct a technological audit of an enterprise. This is more effective than conducting a technical audit by the company’s own forces, and there are reasons for this. There is more objectivity in the analysis conducted by a third-party company, because the employees of the customer company have several rigid psychological stereotypes that are not easy to overcome for people involved in the daily routine workflow, for example:
- “everything is so good and you can’t do it better”,
- “what can be new here in such a simple workflow”,
- “we’ve always done this”;
- “if I were given ten assistants (additional powers, salary increase, bonus
etc., you can add what was in your practice) I’d fix it myself”
Another reason is that the employees of the customer company do not always possess the necessary knowledge that is necessary for collecting, analyzing information and comprehensively assessing the situation at work.
Technological audit can be a good starting point for increasing the volume of production in physical and monetary terms, reducing costs and further development of the company, of course, if it is taken seriously by the management of the customer enterprise. It is worth noting that technological audit, like any consulting services, by itself cannot solve the long-standing fundamental problems of the customer enterprise, you should not expect instant financial benefits from it, it will not be able to eliminate the existing shortcomings by itself.
The main stages are: data collection – analysis – synthesis – reporting. After the audit report is ready, it must be presented to the management of the customer company. Based on its results, specific decisions should be made, fixed in the action plan, and on the basis of it, planned actions should be implemented. Naturally, for large companies, this process can be quite complex and multicomponent, and because of this it can be carried out with different depth of detail.
Based on the results of the technological audit, an optimization program is being developed.
a) Modernization of technological equipment
- preparation of recommendations for the modernization of technological equipment;
- conducting control tests based on the results of modernization of technological equipment. Product quality assessment;
b) Optimization of technological processes of production:
- identification of bottlenecks in the technological process and development of recommendations to ensure their control;
- development of recommendations to reduce bottlenecks by changing the parameters of the technological process, the introduction of automation systems of the technological process, changing the formulations of products, etc.;
- preparation of recommendations for changing the technological process of production (development of a cyclogram of the technological process of production, identification of critical zones of high energy load of production, development of recommendations for optimizing the operation of thermal and refrigeration equipment, development of recommendations for reducing the downtime of individual units of equipment, development of recommendations for reducing energy (heat) losses and a number of other recommendations).
c) Improving the quality of products and their cost:
- making adjustments to the current product formulations, or completely replacing the current formulations of manufactured products with formulations developed by the contractor;
- assessment of the quality of raw materials and their cost, assessment of the possibility of replacing current ingredients with similar ones at the most optimal price;
- optimization of production costs;
- training of technologists, personnel of the laboratory for quality control of raw materials and finished products, development/revision of job descriptions;
d) Optimization of the organizational structure and document flow:
- development of proposals for optimizing document flow;
- development of proposals to optimize the organizational structure (the number and functionality of all working personnel in production, development of job descriptions for line operators, laboratory staff and support staff).
Upon completion of the work, we provide full technological support for production on all issues within a year after the optimization measures are carried out. After 1 year, we carry out a repeated technological audit.