Process engineers are trained professionals who specialize in making changes to industrial processes for the sake of decreasing waste, reducing resource consumption, and ultimately boosting the efficiency of a business.
But how exactly do process engineers accomplish this? And what tools are available to them to execute these strategies?
The Fundamentals of Process Engineering
The field of process engineering is focused on making meaningful improvements to established businesses, ultimately allowing them to operate more efficiently. These changes can apply to a number of areas and manifest in a number of ways, but they generally focus on reducing costs, reducing resource usage, reducing waste, or increasing output.
Collectively, process engineers conduct a thorough analysis to better understand a company’s current operations, goals, and pain points. From there, they recommend a number of strategies, which could include anything from layout changes to new chemical processes, all designed to help the company achieve its stated goals and improve its bottom line.
In most arrangements, process engineers function as consultants. You’ll pay them a fee, and in exchange, they’ll advise your company on a number of important issues. Depending on your goals and the nature of your company, this arrangement might be temporary or ongoing.
The Analysis Phase
Much of a process engineer’s work occurs during the analysis phase. Here, the engineer is focused on identifying pain points, inefficiencies, and opportunities for improvement. Once an issue is understood well enough, the solution becomes obvious – or at least achievable.
Depending on the nature of your business, this could include on-site visits, interviews with managers and supervisors, data analytics, and talks with leaders about major issues. Combined with previous experience and industry knowledge, these pieces of information can lead process engineers to make better recommendations to achieve greater efficiency.
Tools to Increase Efficiency
So what types of tools do process engineers use to increase efficiency?
- Layout changes. The layout of your plant can make a massive impact on your time and resource efficiency. If your employees typically have to cover great distances between steps of a process, it artificially increases the time it takes to complete that process. If your inventory isn’t efficiently managed and stored, you may struggle to get accurate numbers or manage your inventory in an intuitive, efficient way. Sometimes, simply moving pieces of equipment around can make a massive and positive impact on your bottom line.
- Process changes. Process engineers may also recommend process changes, perhaps unsurprisingly. This can come in practically unlimited forms, since there are so many different ways to alter your processes and so many different processes to consider. For example, a process engineer may recommend using a different product or chemical process to reduce waste, or they may recommend following steps in a slightly different order to improve efficiency.
- New equipment. Some of your productivity or efficiency problems may extend from outdated or inappropriate equipment. If your equipment isn’t working properly, if it’s being used for something outside of its scope, or if you’re not maintaining it correctly, you may need to take action. Unfortunately, equipment can be expensive and hard to maintain, so process engineers play an important role in pushing business owners to the right solutions.
- New workflows and automation. At a higher level, process engineers may recommend new workflows, and they may try to incorporate automation wherever they can. A surprising number of tasks can be automated thanks to modern technology, and almost any kind of automation has the power to not only accelerate your output but also improve consistency. That’s not to say that automation is a good fit for every efficiency problem, but it has tremendous potential in a number of applications.
- New partnerships. Strong business partnerships can ameliorate certain types of issues in your business. Finding a more reliable supplier, for example, could help alleviate resource pressure that otherwise constrains your output and productivity.
- New techniques. We live in a society that prides itself on innovation and forward progress, so there’s a constant flow of new ideas and new techniques available to business owners. Process engineers may recommend some of these new techniques or entirely new solutions, enabling business owners to take advantage of innovations they may not have heard of previously. Most process engineers are immersed in a handful of industries, so they have in-depth expertise that can lead them to more thoughtful, more impactful recommendations.
These tools are just scratching the surface of the average process engineer’s arsenal. With sufficient information and time, process engineers can solve almost any major industry problem and objectively increase efficiency and productivity. If your business is struggling with waste, efficiency, or output issues, consider hiring a process engineer to better understand and address those problems.
