Sweed Choppers and Lean Manufacturing
Pressure to reduce costs and the ups and downs of the economy are forcing manufacturers in all industries to implement lean manufacturing principles, a process designed to reduce costs while delivering high quality products within a shorter lead-time. Lean manufacturing reduces the waste that costs small and large companies thousands of dollars each year. Sweed suggest companies streamline their waste by adopting P.O.G. recycling into their facility and become leaner.
What is POG?
Point-of-generation (POG) recycling can be a cost-efficient way to dispose of manufacturing byproduct. It can increase employee production times, shop safety, and create additional production space.
How Does POG work?
POG recycling can be implemented in most facilities with simple scrap choppers. Company’s that dispose of linear scrap (steel or plastic banding, band saw blades, doctor blades, extrusions, etc.) should place a scrap chopper in each location the scrap is being generated so that it can be processed immediately and not accumulate, requiring additional handling. Facilities that want to process their scrap being produced off a production line, usually can install a scrap chopper into their current line.
Why I Should Do This?
Instead of having a large, centrally located recycling machine, or even worse, not addressing the problem at all and letting scrap consume your facility, company’s can tackle scrap at the point it’s being generated. The POG recycling method encourages companies to have one Sweed Scrap Chopper in each location where scrap is produced so it can be disposed of as soon as it’s created.
If office employees have a trashcan near their desk, why shouldn’t each station in a facility have a Sweed Scrap Chopper? Reduced labor, dumpster, and transportation costs; profit recovery; better employee safety; and good housekeeping are all possible benefits of practicing POG recycling.
So How Do I Get Started?
Companies can introduce POG recycling into all aspects of their business by evaluating where the byproducts are being produced—the loading dock, the receiving area, and individual stations within a production line are a few places to start. If employees are handling byproducts more than once, then streamlining the handling of scrap should be considered to improve the overall efficiency of the facility and to truly be lean. Talk with a Sweed Representative to learn more about introducing POG recycling with Sweed Scrap Choppers into your facility.