David Marshall

  • Does the Office Make the Person, or Does the Person Make the Office?

    • June 1, 2017
    • Posted by: David Marshall
    • Category: Management, Manufacturing
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    A good materials handling person can make all the difference in the world to your factory.

    There’s a leadership problem in this country that often has to do with people being promoted because of their technical expertise and not their leadership qualities or people skills. They assume they’re a leader simply because their job title says Manager or Director, only to find that no one respects them. I think of this

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  • Learn From the Past So You Don’t Repeat It

    • May 31, 2017
    • Posted by: David Marshall
    • Category: Business, Innovation
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    Balmoral Castle - Understand the history of places and learn from the past to avoid repeating those mistakes

    The further backward you can look, the farther forward you are likely to see. I’ve always been a big fan of Winston Churchill, and as I was growing up, I adopted several of his quotes as philosophies to live by. This month, I’ll discuss four quotes that have guided me over my professional career. Being

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  • Move From Failure to Failure With a Smile

    • May 24, 2017
    • Posted by: David Marshall
    • Category: Business, Manufacturing
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    Our old Duoline factory before we tore it all down and started over.

    Success is the ability to go from one failure to another with no loss of enthusiasm. I’ve always been a big fan of Winston Churchill, and as I was growing up, I adopted several of his quotes as philosophies to live by. This month, I’ll discuss four quotes that have guided me over my professional

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  • How to Be Perfect: Improve and Change Often

    • May 10, 2017
    • Posted by: David Marshall
    • Category: Business, Measurement
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    A stack of paperwork. This was one of the changes we had to make in order to improve.

    To improve is to change, so to be perfect is to change often. I’ve always been a big fan of Winston Churchill, and as I was growing up, I adopted several of his quotes as philosophies to live by. This month, I’ll discuss four quotes that have guided me over my professional career. I’m a

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  • Forever to Build, Lost in a Moment

    • May 3, 2017
    • Posted by: David Marshall
    • Category: Business, Management
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    Former Florida state senator Frank Artiles

    “To build may have to be the slow and laborious task of years. To destroy can be the thoughtless act of a single day.” I’ve always been a big fan of Winston Churchill, and as I was growing up, I adopted several of his quotes as philosophies to live by. This month, I’ll discuss four

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  • Workplace Romances Create Problems in a Company

    • April 26, 2017
    • Posted by: David Marshall
    • Category: Management
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    Edmund Leighton's "God Speed," an illustration of courtly love. A risky workplace romance.

    Since we spend more than a third of our day at work, and form close relationships with our coworkers, it’s not uncommon to find occasional workplace romances blossoming. However, this is something I strongly discourage and have been very strict about in the past. There are too many potentials for problems with workplace romances. Chances

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  • Kitty Litter in My Parking Spot: Sometimes Leaders Have to Make Hard Choices

    • April 19, 2017
    • Posted by: David Marshall
    • Category: Management
    No Comments
    Fresh cat litter up close - Someone didn't think highly of my leadership

    Years ago, when we were still doing warehouse inventory counts by hand, we decided as a company that an inventory would be taken on a weekend so we wouldn’t disrupt service to our customers. This was not an unusual practice, because we were working toward taking inventory in a single day, not our previous 10

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  • How We Turned a 10-Day Inventory Process Into a One-Day Process

    • April 12, 2017
    • Posted by: David Marshall
    • Category: Management, Productivity
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    This is what a pallet rack system in a warehouse looks like.

    It’s an inventory cage match! Justin Case versus Justin Time Can you imagine running a factory or business where it takes you 10 days just to do a basic count on your inventory? One of the problems is you might count something on Day 1 only to have to recount it because it’s been used

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  • How We Managed a Factory Fire in Texas While I was in Dubai

    • April 5, 2017
    • Posted by: David Marshall
    • Category: Business, Management, Safety
    No Comments

    Always hire good people. If there’s a problem, they’ll take care of it. Several years ago, I was in Dubai on a business trip, and I had just gone to bed. It was 10:30 pm local time, an 8 hour difference between me and our factory in Texas. The phone rang and jolted me awake.

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  • Three Major Benefits From Changing Our Factory Layout

    • March 29, 2017
    • Posted by: David Marshall
    • Category: Innovation, Manufacturing
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    A factory floor with storage rack. That's the sign of great materials management.

    A couple weeks ago, I talked about how we made some changes at Robroy when I first took over as president and COO. One of the first things we did was to do completely change our factory layout. When I first got there, the company and the plant was 40 years old. When the plant

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