Business Management - Productivity/Process Improvement

Reduce setup times, eliminate bottlenecks, free up staff. Use automation to increase your in-plant’s value and ensure your success.

Too often I find many small-business people to be too conservative. I don’t mean in the political sense. I mean they become too risk-adverse and afraid to take on new things because they are "too busy."

As a business grows, the complexity of the operation often multiplies exponentially. This happened to Linda, owner of a thriving commercial printing company, who was seeking a solution to get a handle on the daily operations. I remember the day Linda and her husband Ron flew down to Tennessee to pay us a visit.

Strategies for transforming price into value for printers and helping the customer get a clear picture of the value that you deliver.

Hope you were able to read our last blog: "Scoreboarding: Planning to Win! (Part 1 - Benchmarking Lean Manufacturing)...and that you also watched the video linked to that blog. If not, after you read this blog, I dare say, you’ll want to go back and catch Part 1.

Can you imagine attending a sports event that doesn’t have a scoreboard? You wouldn’t know what inning, quarter or round the game was in, or how much time was left in the game. You wouldn't know who was winning or losing! You simply wouldn’t know the SCORE! With a Scoreboard System, everyone in the organization can see in real time and at-a-glance, the progress of assigned task or projects.

I’ve heard the following seven words a time or two when visiting our franchise members: "We have never done it that way." It’s human nature to continue doing the things we believe will work rather than something that requires taking a risk...or something suggested by a staff member, a fellow shop owner or business advisor.

“On-demand” books offer the prospect of growing sales, revenues, and profits for both publishers and print service providers.

“People who are content with what they don’t know; happy to remain ignorant about what they don’t understand; complacent about what they haven’t analyzed; and comfortable living with problems they haven’t solved...such people cannot lead!”

When you have implemented a complete, written operations manual—you are more than 90 percent of the way to conquering the problem and consequences of forgetting.