For any business, there is always an expected amount of loss that’s written into the budget. This is especially true for manufacturers who cut lumber, metal, fiberglass, and other materials on a large scale for construction and manufacturing. After all, no operation generates the final product with perfect efficiency, and it’s better to be prepared. This means purchasing some materials that you know will ultimately be lost. Needless to say, this is a good thing; understanding that the manufacturing process isn’t perfect is a key part of creating a budget.
However, it’s possible for this preparedness to be taken too far. If the idea of lost, wasted materials is too normalized, businesses may end up wasting money simply because they expect to waste money. Manufacturers often expect to lose as much as 10 to 15 percent of their raw material inventory due to improper cuts, operator error, incorrect measurements, and general machine inefficiency.
We don’t have to mention that 10 to 15 percent is a lot of wasted material. It is worth mentioning, however, that this number is too high: unacceptably high. With technologies currently on the market, such as TigerStop products, it’s no longer necessary to simply accept that much waste and the impact it has on a business’s bottom line.
Why Raw Materials Are Wasted
Having a raw materials inventory is expensive—expensive to buy, expensive to store, and expensive to dispose of when some of it is inevitably cut improperly during the manufacturing process. These factors are all directly connected to one another. Because manufacturers expect to lose a good deal of their inventory due to inefficiencies in cutting and measuring, they buy more than they would otherwise need. Buying more, besides obviously being more expensive, also translates to a need to pay for more storage space. When the material is irreparably damaged due to improper cuts being made, it costs money once again to get rid of it.
That means that, when all is said and done, your business will have had to pay for the cost of these raw materials three times over, simply as an expected part of doing business. This isn’t the only additional cost either. Wasted time also translates directly into wasted money, and inefficient cutting of raw materials tends to waste a lot of time.
It’s good to be prepared for any eventuality, and it’s good to understand that the manufacturing process isn’t perfect. However, it’s not necessary to accept that all of this loss of time and money is a simple fact of doing business, especially when it may affect your business’s ability to be competitive in a market where plenty of others have figured out how to avoid so much needless overbuying.
Conserve Your Materials
It’s understandable that so much overbuying of raw materials inventory has taken place for so long. For many years, everything was measured by hand and loaded meticulously onto table saws and similar equipment by the workers themselves. Even if these workers are highly trained, some human error is to be expected, and that human error—even if it is minor—translates to lost inventory and a need to buy more than is necessary.
Nowadays, however, human operators no longer need to handle the job alone. Automated saw fence guides, equipped with highly accurate software that is capable of storing thousands of different measurements, have entered the market and changed the game completely.
Now, rather than spending hours carefully trying to figure out every cut on their own, workers can simply be trained to operate a TigerStop saw fence guide. This, in turn, will take the guesswork out of the equation.
With minimal training, workers will simply have to load the materials into place. The TigerStop will then automatically push the material into the saw, measuring it exactly so that it’s cut with staggering accuracy. It will then push it to the next step and be ready for more material, all within minutes or sometimes even seconds. Perhaps even more impressive, TigerStop products come equipped with Dynamic Optimization Software, which allows them to determine the most efficient order to cut material in, based on a preprogrammed cut list.
With technology like this, the inefficiency that businesses previously accepted as inevitable is practically eliminated. The machinery also requires minimal setup and training, which means that manufacturers can jump straight into actually manufacturing that much faster.
Some TigerStop Products to Try
TigerStop offers plenty of different products, depending upon the scale of your operation. The original TigerStop itself is rated to push and pull weights of up to 180 pounds. For many small or medium operations, this is plenty. It’s incredibly intuitive and easy to operate, meaning that once the installation is done, the machinery can get to work within hours.
As your business expands, your manufacturing needs will expand as well, which means you may seek to upgrade to the TigerRack. This automated saw fence guide is rated for material up to 720 pounds. Its automated pusher will handle materials quickly, utilizing patented software to cut to within a staggering 0.008 of an inch accuracy.
Upgrade even further by opting for a fully automated TigerSaw 1000. This product is rated for up to 2,100 pounds and is accurate to 0.012 of an inch. It handles raw materials on an absolutely massive scale while still making worker safety its first priority. The blade remains fully enclosed so that no one is at risk while it operates. It even cuts down on the cleanup afterward with its advanced dust collection process, further saving time and money. As long as it’s in operation, the TigerSaw 1000 will also record statistics, helping to further improve efficiency in the manufacturing process.
The Next Step
To take advantage of these advancements and save a great deal of money on your raw material inventory, contact TigerStop to discuss the best product for your business’s needs. They will help you decide what you need and perform installation and training swiftly so that you can begin saving as soon as possible.