Business
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Three Ways to Fix Your Supply Chain Right Now
- November 17, 2021
- Posted by: David Marshall
- Category: Business, Management
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There are shortages and inflation throughout the country, thanks to a number of supply chain issues. Container ships are stacked up outside different west coast ports, there are labor shortages to unload and reload container ships, and there are shortages of labor to make parts and goods here in the United States. But all is
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How Do You Manage a Disruptive Employee, Especially in a Union?
- November 10, 2021
- Posted by: David Marshall
- Category: Business, Leadership, Management, Safety
One of the most difficult things to do in a manufacturing operation is to fire union employees. Unions have historically played an important role in establishing workers’ rights and guaranteeing their safety. But there are some workers who take advantage of the union and hide behind it when they’ve been doing poor quality work or
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Do Floor Managers and Supervisors Need Leadership Training?
- October 6, 2021
- Posted by: David Marshall
- Category: Business
One of the great cockups that Corporate America makes is assuming people who are great at their jobs will be great leaders of their departments. They promote great salespeople to become sales managers or they promote great machine operators to become floor managers. This compounds two mistakes, one on top of the other. Not only
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Corporate Buyers Should Leave Acquired Companies Alone
- August 25, 2021
- Posted by: David Marshall
- Category: Business, Leadership
Every successful company that has a product or service has a culture of its own that developed around it. Successful companies have found the secret to making their culture function to become one of the leaders in their field, which made them an attractive target for acquisition or merger by corporate buyers. This is how
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Is Slow to Hire, Fast to Fire Still Important in a Slow Job Market?
- August 4, 2021
- Posted by: David Marshall
- Category: Business, Management
Slow to hire, fast to fire as a management philosophy still matters, even now, in today’s labor market. The job talent pool is pretty shallow these days, with worker shortages in manufacturing, and there’s a concern that if you hold out for the best possible talent, those candidates may be gone by the time you’re
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How Can You Solve a Worker Shortage Right Now?
- July 28, 2021
- Posted by: David Marshall
- Category: Business, Management, Manufacturing
There are worker shortages right now in all kinds of industries, from the restaurant industry to office workers to manufacturing. There are a variety of causes, like the fact that we’re paying people more not to work than what they were being paid to work. Or that some people don’t want to return to the
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Why Do We Need More Women in Manufacturing?
- April 7, 2021
- Posted by: David Marshall
- Category: Business
People have a tendency to stereotype and it has always aggravated me when they do. There’s been a long-time myth that manufacturing is only for men, and that women are incapable of doing the kind of hard work involved in a factory. You only have to know the story of how 6 million American women
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Working Remotely Can Stifle Professional Development
- January 13, 2021
- Posted by: David Marshall
- Category: Business, Management, Productivity
I’ve said over the past few years that I’ve never been a big fan of working remotely. And even though current circumstances have forced most office workers to work from home or work from socially-distant coworking spaces, I still think it’s essential that we return to the office as soon as it’s safe to do
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5 Manufacturing Predictions for 2021
- January 6, 2021
- Posted by: David Marshall
- Category: Business, Digital Transformation, Innovation, Manufacturing
Sometimes we’re so close to the trees that we can’t see the forest. We’re so focused on this one tree, not realizing that the forest is growing and changing all around us. I feel that way when I think about all the manufacturing technology changes that have been going on around us in 2020 and
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Dealing with the Fallout of Bad Managers
- December 23, 2020
- Posted by: David Marshall
- Category: Business, Management
I’ve always said, “Hire slow, fire fast,” and that’s served me well on a number of occasions. It helps me avoid hiring people who will be bad for an organization, and in those rare instances that someone slips through the cracks, I don’t spend weeks and months agonizing about the problem as they slowly infect