How to Increase Labor Productivity in Bakeries

Increasing labor productivity in your bakery means increasing value added per worker or per hour worked.
Many bakery plants in developing world are labor intensive  .Workers  are involved in most of the jobs such as transportation , packaging , feeding to mixers and packing machines , unloading and loading at stores and dispatch , Material movement inside production hall ,Ingredient preparation  ,Hygiene and sanitation , pest  control , rework , taping , sealing and other miscellaneous activity .
Output of any manufacturing unit can be increased by automation  or  capital investment but it would require major capital investment which most of the bakeries are not in position to do .
Hence other options are smaller modifications in plant layout  to increase productivity,discovering any new recipe with lower  cost ingredients  or  optimize time of process .Options for labor productivity  are either  you control on several wastages in labor activity or Innovate in process.

Wastages which  results in  low productivity  are

Waste during Operations  -Too much handling of products and  packing material .
Waste of Movement – To much movement in packing section where movements involves
                                    .Packing material from stores to shop floor
                                     Changeover  to different product
                                     Re work of rejected packets
                                     Taping on cartons
                                     Labeling , coding , stickering  and strapping
                                     Transferring carton boxes  to pallets
Waste on Rework -  Companies are focused for  production figures rather than quality products through  process with quality checks in place.  Rejected materials are then re worked for packaging involving labor .World class measures defects in parts per millions ( PPM)  where as here in our country budgeted defects are in terms of 5%-3%.
Physical strain and stress on workers – Process have certain activity where workers are physically stressed or strained impacting productivity  . One of them is material handling   which can be reduced by having equipments such as pallets trucks , trolleys , chain hoist , drum tilters , forklifts etc.Working Environment also adds to worker productivity  companies have to provide dust proof ,proper ambience in their factory to work .Few standards are  mentioned in Factory Act which relates to  min and max weight s which a worker can handle  , noise , sanitation , height and lighting of factory .