David Marshall
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Can a Warehouse Management System Fix Your Inventory Accuracy?
- December 14, 2016
- Posted by: David Marshall
- Category: Business, Innovation
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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
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Need to upgrade your manufacturing facility?
- August 8, 2016
- Posted by: David Marshall
- Category: Manufacturing
I oversaw the building of new ultra-modern 130,000 square foot manufacturing facility to better serve the company’s oilfield market, and provide better access to the Port of Houston. The new plant included: Unique, highly efficient fiberglass-reinforced plastics (FRP) manufacturing systems supported by advanced process controls. Robotics and automation for repeatability and precision. Full range of