During Lockdown, many many small businesses had to take a long hard look at the way they run from enabling employees to work from home to diversifying what they offer to automation and manufacturing. Every single process looked at and analysed to ensure maximum efficiency and profits in a time when the world stood still.

What is automation?

Automation is the “technique, method, or system of operating or controlling a process by highly automatic means, as by electronic devices, reducing human intervention to a minimum. a mechanical device, operated electronically, that functions automatically, without continuous input from an operator. act or process of automating.” (Urban Dictionary)

How automation can help to turn around businesses mid-pandemic:

Automating systems within your small business can help in various ways and most of them feed off each other making automation a winning formula.

• Productivity: By using machinery you increase productivity by taking out the human thinking element of a process.  Machines can also work faster and longer than people, they don;t need a break for coffee or things like sleep.
• Accuracy: Unlike people, machines do not make mistakes, there is no human error or change in production caused by tiredness etc. each element looks and feels exactly like the previous.
• Safety: Machines don’t get hurt and are an ideal solution for tasks/jobs that are dangerous to people.
• Quality: Just like with accuracy removing human error from manufacturing processes means that you get perfect, exact, replicas each time. Human error increases the quality of each product.
• Save money: RNA automation, design and manufacture a wide variety of bespoke automation systems, from feeding systems to inspection systems, whilst this kind of system is an investment, in the long run, your small business will save money by reducing human error factors. Automation also requires fewer employees thus again reducing costs.
• Repetition: Unlike people, machines are able to do the same job over and over and over again without a change in production or quality. This also means your business can manufacture in high volumes.
• Getting back to work: Manufacturing business at the moment are having to choose low volume production over high volume production, in order to keep their workers safe. Advances in tech are allowing many roles previously performed by human beings to be automated, which means that many manufacturing companies could alleviate labour issues and get many companies back to the point where they can produce enough to turn a healthy profit. It also means that the money spent on wages for the human workforce for the company can be funnelled into different areas, or that the potential employees can help drive the business in other ways.”

How did you use Lockdown to analyses your small business production processes? Have you considered automating any?

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