One minute doesn’t sound like much. Until you repeat it thousands of times a year.
I’ve walked through plants where everyone accepted an extra minute in the process because…
“That’s how we’ve always run the line.”
Nobody questioned it. Nobody calculated it.
It was simply part of the process.
But manufacturing doesn’t experience one minute. It experiences every minute.
One extra minute in a cure cycle doesn’t just affect the oven.
- It can affect work-in-process inventory.
- It can affect equipment utilization.
- It can affect labor efficiency.
- It can affect available capacity.
And depending on where the true constraint is, it can affect throughput and revenue.
Now look at the other side.
Removing one unnecessary minute doesn’t just save sixty seconds.
- It creates available capacity.
- More room in the process.
- More flexibility in the schedule.
- More opportunity to produce without immediately adding equipment.
That’s why I rarely ask,
“How much time can we save?”
Instead, I ask,
“Was that minute ever necessary in the first place?”
Sometimes it is. Sometimes it isn’t.
But I’ve learned that questioning one minute can uncover some of the biggest opportunities on a manufacturing line.