Process engineering has the potential to make your business much more efficient, and in multiple ways. But some business owners are reluctant to spend money on process engineering, and others are unconvinced of the benefits.
What exactly makes process engineering worth the investment? And how does it return value to your organization?
The Advantages of Process Engineering
Process engineering is a set of strategies designed to optimize your business for efficiency, productivity, and ultimately, profitability. Together with a process engineering expert, you can analyze various aspects of your business, including your production lines, your processes and workflows, your approaches to chemical analysis, electrical engineering, and mechanical engineering, and much more.
At the highest level, process engineers are responsible for identifying shortcomings and weaknesses in your operations, so that they can propose alternative solutions to close those gaps. This is a process that often takes weeks to months, and it takes even longer to implement solutions, but the end result is a much more efficient, profitable operation.
Process engineers can help you with things like:
- Identifying and minimizing waste. One of the principal responsibilities of a process engineer is identifying and either eliminating or minimizing waste. If your business consistently ends up with excess materials, a process engineer may be able to find a way to minimize that wasted output or reuse or resell those excess materials. On a big enough scale, this can save your company a lot of time and money.
- Identifying and eliminating bottlenecks. Process engineers are also exceptionally skilled at recognizing and finding ways to close bottlenecks. Bottlenecks can bring your otherwise productive operation grinding to a halt, but the good news is most of them are preventable.
- Overall workflow improvement. Together with process engineers, you can identify flaws in your current workflows and work to improve them. You can eliminate points of redundancy and streamline your overall processes.
- Automation deployment. Are you interested in automation? Process engineers can help you with that, too. They can identify opportunities to integrate automation and spare your organization from unnecessary manual effort.
- Safety improvements. Process engineering typically looks at safety as well. Are you confident that your organization is reasonably safe? Are there any strategies you could implement to reduce the risk of accidents and injuries even further?
- Increased product quality. If one of your goals is to increase product quality, process engineers may be able to help you here as well. They can identify any holes in your quality assurance processes.
- Improved compliance. Similarly, process engineers can help you with compliance, pointing out any gaps in your current efforts.
The Costs of Process Engineering
There are some costs of process engineering to keep in mind, however.
- Process engineering consulting. Process engineers aren’t free. You’ll need to pay their consulting fees or salaries to get access to them.
- New equipment and resources. Equipment can be expensive, and it may be necessary to upgrade or replace certain pieces of equipment in your organization as part of your process engineering efforts.
- New education, training, and adjustments. You’ll also need to pay for education and training for your staff members. Adjusting to new workflows and practices can be difficult.
Is Process Engineering Always Worth the Investment?
So is process engineering always worth the investment?
The short answer is no, despite the fact that most major operations can benefit from process engineering. Before you decide to work with process engineers, consider the following:
- Who you’re working with. There are many different types of process engineers out there, and they all have different levels of experience and technical expertise. You’ll need to make sure you’re working with the right people if you want to extract the full value from this working relationship.
- The size and scope of your business. You also need to consider the size and scope of your business. If you own a major international production facility, you’re much more likely to benefit from process engineering than a tiny business with a small footprint and relatively simple processes. The bigger and more complex your organization is, the more unique your process engineering.
- Your long-term plans. Great businesses always plan for the long term. You’ll be much more likely to benefit from process engineering if you plan on scaling your business in the future. All the benefits of this arrangement are going to compound with time.
- Current issues. You may also want to consider the current issues your business faces. Are you struggling with bottlenecks and waste? If so, process engineering could be especially important for you.
Under the right conditions, process engineers have the potential to totally transform your organization for the better. The costs of such an arrangement are merely an investment, setting up your business for long-term success.
