The data is clear. Despite some positive signs, a crisis in the world of production is coming and it will begin to affect manufacturing companies.

What is going to happen?

I am sure you can imagine.

Manufacturing companies will start to close one after the other and fewer will remain than before.

You are still in time to save yourself and be one of the few enlightened ones.

How?

By introducing the FLEXIBLE PRODUCTION METHOD!

And you can do it before it’s too late!

With another crisis / slowdown coming, there are two distinct reactions that entrepreneurs can have: attack or run away!

The crisis is like a big wave.  It is up to the entrepreneur to decide whether to wait and suffer through it risking drowning, or exploit it and ride the wave and be ahead of all others in a position of advantage!

As I mentioned above, you can attack or escape.

If you choose the second option, as often natural instincts prefer, by cutting investments and hoping to survive, then I do not have much to say. However, the data is not in favor of this option. Relying on cuts and reductions and waiting is often the cause of death itself.

If you’re lucky and you’re back in the small percentage of companies that remain afloat, the restart can often not be done anyway because you have stopped too much and maybe the assets eroded as you waited and you do not have enough to invest, you used it only to prolong the inevitable.

Now I illustrate how the companies in your sector have “attacked” and ridden the wave of the crisis of 2008 and today.  After 10 years they are not only in business but they find themselves far ahead of those who, at the time, decided to “run away” and today barely survive or no longer exist.

FIRST WAY: USERS OF TRANSFER MACHINE

In 2008 the crisis began to attack not the market but their business model which consisted in using only high-production transfer machines to obtain the lowest possible cycle time and consequently the lowest cost per piece compared to their competitors.  Putting the pieces in stock and selling their product to as many people / countries as possible.

This “Henry Ford” business model has worked for decades, and has boosted many companies that have been able to conquer large slices of the market.

This worked until 2008.

Then, in a few months, this way of doing business collapsed.

The concomitance of the economic slowdown combined with the expansion of Asian countries with their low labor cost and the desire to emerge combined with a policy of the Chinese government to invade, not with arms but with products, has meant that in a short time all our production systems were not more competitive but destined to collapse like a sand castle.

This was the picture of 2008/2009 and of the following years.

Luckily a group of entrepreneurs, although not knowing each other, had something in common: the desire to ATTACK and not to run away, they did not give up.

I remember well this dark period. At that time, the only thing I could do was listen and try to “crack the moment” that simply means trying to find a solution to the new situation that the crisis had created.

After many meetings and listening to various entrepreneurs, little by little common problems were forming between them.  The management of small / medium lots and because almost all customers complained that the large lots were systematically being lost to the Asian competition.  However, the demand for small / medium-sized lots was left uncontested because they were too problematic to manage for the Asian competition

Having said this, another very important fact was that no customer wanted to risk producing for the warehouse and then hoping to sell it in the future, because this way of working required a lot of capital stock, reducing the company liquidity and, as you know, the warehouse, until it is sold, represents a risk!

On this basis in the world of production the FLEXIBLE PRODUCTION METHOD was born, a method that aims to PRODUCE ONLY THE SOLD QUANTITY, WITHOUT STOCK, WITH MORE CASH IN YOUR BANK ACCOUNT.

The foundation of this method comes from LEAN MANUFACTURING, more commonly known as the TOYOTA WAY or TOYOTA METHOD. This concept is applied to a large number of businesses, companies, banks, supermarkets.  In short, it is a way of working to make your business efficient and effective by eliminating waste and optimizing activities that bring real value to your production process.

The FLEXIBLE PRODUCTION METHOD is useful for this way of working, but focused ONLY and EXCLUSIVELY to users of machine tools.

In fact, just from the method, the MULTICENTER was born, a machine born and designed to apply the METHOD in a simple and fast way!

Personally, I think and I am convinced that it is the FIRST MACHINE IN THE WORLD that was designed for a specific METHOD of work, in other words it was designed thinking about the business organization and the business model to be applied.

Before – and even today – in the world of production the opposite happened: you decide on the business model and then you look for which machine tool can approach that model, adapting existing machines NOT designed for that specific business model!!

This is why I “PREACH” the business model, in fact my flagship product is the business model represented in the book FLEXIBLE PRODUCTION which was published in 2015 and has already spread rapidly over 12,000 copies, translated into 9 languages.

Today the entrepreneurs and users of transfer machines who want to attack and not run away from the upcoming crisis, have at their disposal a METHOD that can be implemented so as to face the next crisis head on!

SECOND WAY: USERS OF MACHINING CENTERS IN BATTERY

The FLEXIBLE PRODUCTION METHOD is a very effective way for users of machining centers in battery.

Thanks to the main tool that represents this method, the flexible machines, in the world of production you can cut the production personnel, drastically reduce the energy required, simplify the fixtures with a consequent lower economic impact on the piece cost, have a single production process instead of multiple production processes to keep under control, reduce the space occupied, with the cost of automation can be drastically cut.

These are just a few points of advantage if you apply this strategy compared to using the common machining centers, in fact the METHOD AIMS AT TRANSFORMING YOUR FIXED COSTS IN EBITDA (Earnings Before Interest, Taxes, Depreciation and Amortization), that item found on the balance sheet is an indicator of profitability which highlights the income of a company based only on its operational management.

EBITDA is more important than profit for financial analysts because it allows us to clearly see if the company is able to generate wealth through operational management, and the FLEXIBLE PRODUCTION METHOD aims to improve the operational management of your company!

In this article, I have briefly explained how the FLEXIBLE PRODUCTION METHOD is implemented in only two very specific ways: users of TRANSFER MACHINES and users of MACHINING CENTERS IN BATTERY.

If you want to go deeper on the topic of “Flexible Production”,

CLICK HERE

>>> www.flexibleproductionbook.com <<<

My book, dedicated to users of machine tools that want to make the leap in quality & productivity, is waiting for you!!!

Maurizio Porta

MASTER TRAINER Method FLEXIBLE PRODUCTION