Indirect Materials

Indirect materials have amazing costs in most companies. However, often their standardization and improvement is not a continuous focus for companies (with visible results).

Large variations between system and factual data are often encountered, increasing and generating large and continuous discussions.

Often those involved in operations determine the appearance of special orders with high costs for all kinds of indirect materials (offices are similar), such as:

• • for maintenance (emulsions, cleaning materials, protective materials, etc.);
  • for production (knives, drills, protective materials, cleaning materials, etc);
  • for warehouses (internal packaging, protective materials, cleaning materials, etc.), etc.

Recently, in a prestigious multinational company I did not find any maintenance concern for standardizing the emulsion consumption of the equipment: area name; emulsion type (standardized at the factory level); quantity; duration (stopping equipment – yes or no; if yes then no production is planned for this time); frequency (weekly, monthly).

So is the standardization of indirect materials a challenge and a concern at the operational level (avoiding stops/ slowdowns or non-quality) and an opportunity for cost improvement in your company?

Source: Alin Posteucă on LinkedIn