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Manuel Resendes Manuel Resendes
Engineering/Toolroom Manager

Eliminating Pressroom Waste—One Walk at a Time

June 10, 2025
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You don’t fix a production line with reports alone. You fix it by walking the floor.

In today’s economic climate, metal formers seek ways to eliminate waste and eke out efficiencies in their pressrooms. Eliminating waste in the pressroom doesn’t happen in a meeting room—it happens on the floor. Standing beside the machines, watching the process flow, listening to the operators—that’s where the real opportunities reveal themselves. Waste can be eliminated by walking the floor, engaging with the people running the machines, and acting on what you see and hear. The operators already know where the friction is. A manager should help them remove it.

Pressroom-Waste-Root-CausesIf you’re waiting for lagging metrics to tell you that something’s broken, you’re already too late. Instead, walk the line and look for where the flow is off. Listen for the subtle changes in rhythm. Engage with the operators—the people closest to the process—and you’ll identify the early signs of waste before the data catches up.

When operators are clearing jams, adjusting feeds or tapping sensors, they’re adapting to keep things moving. But this constant firefighting comes at a cost:

  • Rising scrap
  • Slower cycle times
  • Delays that risk on-time delivery.

Targeted Improvements Can Remove Waste

The key to eliminating waste: shifting from reacting to these symptoms to fixing the root causes that drive them.

Realign sensors to correctly detect part placement and orientation. Misfeeds and cycle interruptions are common with inconsistent part detection. Operators frequently must reset sensors that aren’t detecting parts correctly just to keep flow going. Repositioning the sensors and verifying angles for optimal detection can eliminate false stops and restore steady operation.

Modify guide rails and insertion points to eliminate jamming and off-angle drops. Off-angle drops caused by worn or misaligned rails lead to frequent jams. After analyzing part paths, modify guide rails and insertion points to align with part flow. This significantly reduces stoppages and maintains consistent output.

Reprogram sensors to prevent double-stacking and missed parts. Often, defects from double-stacking and skipped parts can be traced back to inconsistent sensor logic. This may require rewriting programs to include verification sequences that ensure proper feed. Doing so will improve quality and throughput.

Adjust hydraulic pressures to stabilize forming operations. Fluctuating forming pressures cause part variation and defects. By calibrating hydraulic pressures to the optimal range, dimensional consistency improves and defects decrease, stabilizing the process.

Pressroom-Waste-eliminatingBuild simple fixtures to maintain critical part positioning with less operator intervention. Manual alignment slows production and introduces variation. Constructing and using basic mechanical fixtures can ensure that parts stay in the correct position, reducing operator adjustments and enabling smoother flow. Staffing requirements decrease, allowing operators to focus on value-added tasks elsewhere.

Review the part print to enable speed improvements without compromising quality. Once you have stabilized your process, brainstorm with your team about changes that can be made beyond daily firefighting. For example, look at stamped-part features that can be modified to improve manufacturability. Or you might scrutinize the process for opportunities to improve cycle time. You’ll realize real improvements by giving operators the bandwidth to contribute ideas.

Less Waste Wrings Results

These changes don’t happen overnight. It can take a few weeks to iron out all the issues, but that time is well worth the investment—for the operators, the managers and the ownership. Cycle time will improve with each mechanical fix and process stabilization. Scrap and rework rates drop. Measure the results through carefully tested trials. Each second saved per cycle translates to weeks of extra available production capacity each year.

And those reports that everyone waits for? They’ll reflect how well you’ve managed the process—starting with how you walk the shop floor. The charts will catch up next month, but you’ll already know that the arrows are pointing up. MF

Industry-Related Terms: Forming, Manufacturability, Repositioning, Scrap, Tapping, Forming, Forming
View Glossary of Metalforming Terms

Technologies: Sensing/Electronics/IOT

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