David Marshall
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What’s the ROI of Fixing Your Downtime?
- January 18, 2017
- Posted by: David Marshall
- Category: Business, Measurement
No CommentsIn previous articles, I’ve discussed the importance of measuring and monitoring your plant workflow, in order to find any problem areas, whether it’s an associate, a machine, or a process. When you’re measuring plant workflow, you’re not only looking for productivity numbers to make sure you’re meeting your projections, you’re also looking for problem areas,
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Hiring Good People Sometimes Means Ignoring HR
- January 11, 2017
- Posted by: David Marshall
- Category: Management
Hiring good people is becoming more and more of an issue for companies as the unemployment rate drops. And it’s becoming more difficult as recruiting services and hiring software have entered into the mix, because the résumés being submitted can be fairly unreliable. Recruiters have a tendency to coach candidates on how to puff up
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How Document Management Improves Productivity, Lowers Costs
- December 21, 2016
- Posted by: David Marshall
- Category: Innovation, Measurement, Productivity
I remember during my career, years ago, when everything was done on paper. We saved all memos, letters, and faxes sent or received. Saving all that correspondence was a major undertaking, as was the paperwork we kept whenever we hired someone. Add in the normal paperwork of a manufacturing operation, and things really started to
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Can a Warehouse Management System Fix Your Inventory Accuracy?
- December 14, 2016
- Posted by: David Marshall
- Category: Business, Innovation
A warehouse management system may seem like a panacea to a lot of problems, but they can’t fix anything. They can’t fix your inventory management issues, or solve your accuracy problems, or make shipments take less time. Not until you have done two important steps: Changed your organizational behaviors. Reviewed, validated, and changed all processes
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The Best Way to Set Goals and Objectives
- December 7, 2016
- Posted by: David Marshall
- Category: Leadership, Management
Companies that measure everything should also be measuring their corporate goals, as well as the goals of their associates. This is how you can tell whether your company and your staff are meeting projections, improving productivity, and improving their skills and abilities. To properly measure your goals, they have to be specific, quantifiable, and even
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Cut Your Bottom 10%: Using an ABC Analysis to Find Your Lowest Performers
- November 13, 2016
- Posted by: David Marshall
- Category: Measurement, Productivity
If you’re familiar with the Pareto principle, and use it in some of your business decision making, maybe you should be familiar with the ABC Analysis. The ABC Analysis is an offshoot of the Pareto principle, and is useful in identifying the successes in your business. Let me explain. The Pareto principle — also called
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Understand Your Company’s Process to Set Goals and Objectives:
- October 17, 2016
- Posted by: David Marshall
- Category: Manufacturing, Measurement
Previously, I discussed the importance of companies and their employees setting definite, measurable goals and objectives as a way to measure their productivity, progress, and improved skills. I said that basic goals like “improve sales” are too generic to actually be useful. A better goal would be to “Improve current sales revenue by 10 percent
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The Perils of Matrix Management
- September 23, 2016
- Posted by: David Marshall
- Category: Management
As the business atmosphere moves away from the formal, button down environments I worked in, I’m seeing more companies adopt a matrix management philosophy, which may actually be harmful to a company’s success. Matrix management is where employees report to two or three managers. The management hierarchy is not only flat, but there are fewer
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Effective Safety Programs
- September 3, 2016
- Posted by: David Marshall
- Category: Safety
Too many times, associates don’t heed safety warnings and ignore their safety programs. They think it doesn’t apply to them or that they won’t be hurt, or that they know better “how things work,” and they’ll circumvent safety equipment and safety procedures to make things work. As the president of a large manufacturing company, I
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Improving Culture = Increased Productivity
- August 25, 2016
- Posted by: David Marshall
- Category: Business, Measurement
At one point I found out that 40% of all our invoices that were sent to customers came back as debit memos. That means there was something wrong with it, and it needed to be fixed on our end. If we wanted increased productivity in the back office, we had to figure out why this