What if your business is at a crossroads. And you have to choose between losing customers or cutting labour costs. You start looking at better inventory management and automating your current workflow. So how can a cutting system contribute to reducing labour cost? Part of a whole, these systems have much to offer because cutting can be a time-consuming and labour-intensive activity. Accepting new technologies can be the key to survive in the competitive manufacturing industries, as we know them today.
When reducing labour costs becomes urgent
Just like the customer order cycle becomes shorter, the prices they are willing to pay are going down as well. And when the margins are no longer in proportion, while your competitors are able to keep up and sell at low prices. Then change is urgent.
Solving this is not a matter of laying off employees to reduce labour costs. You can continue to keep your well-trained staff happy and implement their talents and experience in your company. An evaluation of the production process and analysis of the equipment can have the impact needed for your company.
How are you processing orders? Are your large cutting machines occupied with small jobs? Or do you have the equipment to take them away to smaller machines, not disturbing the continuous workflow of your larger jobs?
Measures to save costs
Your evaluation will give valuable insights into areas in which you can save costs to become profitable again. Also include the following measures.
- Automation is crucial because the more a production process is automated, the less labour-intensive the process becomes and the better the costs are spread. For instance, look at cutting systems that require minimal operator assistance.
- Standardization of manufacturing and processes is important to enhance automation. This entails producing products of the same type, in high volumes, in regular runs. The entire process should be a union of hardware and software, accessible and easy to use by everyone. This way, the quality will be more consistent, there will be a quicker output and it will save on labour costs significantly.
- Another means to reduce labour costs is to invest in lean production. This concept is much focused on minimizing costs through efficient purchasing and also includes quality improvement and waste reduction. Easy said, but this is about the structure of the entire organization, thus, not a quick cost-saving solution.
- Embrace and implement the technology and solutions needed to aid in scaling down labour costs in manufacturing. It’s about creating operator-friendly solutions and automated processes. So, continuous innovation and modernization of company equipment are vital here.
Keeping labour costs low with a laser cutting system
Assess your equipment and have the courage to consider the purchase of a new cutting system that supports automation. An investment that delivers.
By providing intelligent cutting systems, of which the hardware perfectly integrates with the software, Summa offers companies the means to reduce labour costs. Equipped with many unique features, a Summa cutting system contributes to keeping those labour costs low.
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Saving time with Vision technology
Summa's unique Vision technology, optional on the L1810 and standard on the L3214 laser cutter, quickly scans the design on printed material through advanced camera recognition. A cut vector will then be created automatically, and the entire roll can be cut continuously without operator intervention. Depending on your level of standardization, the designer doesn’t need to create a cut file here. These two facts, give the operator as well as the designer the time to attend other important tasks. On top of that, the L3214 is able to perform the design scan while it is scanning. This cutting system is therefore highly productive.
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Lower labour cost with single-ply cutting
Single-ply cutters, such as Summa’s laser cutters, reduce manual labour to a minimum. This is in contrast to their cumbersome counterpart multi-ply cutters. With multi-ply cutters, no less than 5 layers need to be prepared manually before the cutter can even start to cut. Single-ply cutters don’t need such extensive preparations. By the time the manual preparation of the layers is done, the Summa laser cutter will have cut the entire job, automatically and continuously.
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A constant feed of material
The roll feeder of Summa ensures a continuous and automatic feeding of material to the cutting machine. In the case of printed materials, this post-cut method is very time efficient. There are no cut parts that need to be manually positioned on the material to apply the print design. Thus, lowering labour costs once again.
Summa is committed to continuing delivering high-performance products and continuously invests in new innovative technologies. This enables Summa to stay close to its customers and continue to support businesses with quality products.
