Measurement

  • The Downside of Digital Transformation

    • February 27, 2019
    • Posted by: David Marshall
    • Category: Business, Management, Measurement
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    A robot interacting with a transparent digital display. Represents artificial intelligence.

    While I’m generally high on digital transformation in this blog and talking about the upsides and positive benefits that come from it, I’m well aware that there are downsides to digital transformation. For one thing, artificial intelligence is not the panacea to all of your problems. You can’t just get an AI package, dump all

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  • What Life Was Like Before AI and Digital Transformation

    • February 20, 2019
    • Posted by: David Marshall
    • Category: Digital Transformation, Measurement
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    The fiberglass line at our old Duoline factory.

    For some executives, it’s hard to imagine life before artificial intelligence and digital transformation. There’s always been automation and computers helping facilitate decision making and measurement. But I know that pre-AI world all too well, having spent most of my career in that part of the manufacturing history. The result was often poor quality, stifled

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  • How To Make Sure You Made the Right Business Decisions

    • February 6, 2019
    • Posted by: David Marshall
    • Category: Leadership, Measurement
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    Three darts stuck in a dartboard. Sometimes it seems this is the best way to make a business decision. And it's all you have if you don't measure your results.

    One of the great things about being president of a company is that you can, within reason, do whatever you want. You don’t have to ask anyone or get permission. Of course, that depends on the magnitude of what you want to undertake, but for the most part, you get to call the shots and

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  • What Do You Need on Your Measurement Dashboard?

    • January 9, 2019
    • Posted by: David Marshall
    • Category: Manufacturing, Measurement
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    Photo of a car dashboard. It's an analogy for a measurement dashboard.

    I’ve long been a proponent of measuring a company’s efficiency by measuring each employee’s productivity, output, and even their costs. Whether it’s an associate on the floor, an associate in the Accounts Receivable office, or even the President and COO of the entire company, you have to know how well the company is performing in

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  • The Secret to Managing Discipline in a Large Business Setting

    • October 10, 2018
    • Posted by: David Marshall
    • Category: Manufacturing, Measurement, Productivity
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    Highway management sign: The key to managing discipline in a large business setting is by establishing objective measurements, and letting associates manage their own performance.

    Managing discipline in a large company starts with the hiring process. I’ve always believed in hiring slow and firing fast. But I also had a rule that nobody could be fired without my permission. What that meant was any issue that looked like it could end in termination would elevate to me so a manager

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  • How to Avoid Business Debt

    • August 29, 2018
    • Posted by: David Marshall
    • Category: Business, Measurement
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    A new piece of machinery. Just looking at it makes me worry about business debt.

    Business debt is the one killer to a company’s bottom line, and you need to avoid it whenever possible. If you’re not careful, you can get in over your head and spend most of your profits trying to dig out from it. Whenever I had a position of leadership in any organization, I always brought

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  • How to Maintain the Right Inventory Levels

    • August 15, 2018
    • Posted by: David Marshall
    • Category: Business, Management, Measurement, Productivity
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    A forklift in a giant warehouse of tires in metal racks. Pictures like this make me shudder when I think of how companies have high inventory levels.

    A serious problem facing many manufacturers is tying up cash reserves by keeping too much inventory or too many raw materials on hand. Finished products don’t move as quickly as you thought, or you made more than you needed “just in case,” or you bought a lot of raw materials because you got a bigger

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  • How Can a Department Like HR Measure Itself?

    • July 25, 2018
    • Posted by: David Marshall
    • Category: Management, Measurement
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    You can measure the back office staff, like HR, on their performance too.

    Plenty of people understand how relatively easy it is for a manufacturing operation to perform objective measurements on its output. Each machine is capable of performing X number of actions per hour, and each associate is also capable of producing X number of units in that hour. You can measure units produced, downtime, and even

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  • How Do You Measure the Cost Benefits of Safety?

    • July 11, 2018
    • Posted by: David Marshall
    • Category: Management, Manufacturing, Measurement
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    A warning sign to stress worker safety - this one warns people about falling off a step

    You often hear about the costs of accidents and injuries to a company, and those are usually based on a specific incident or accident. For example, if an associate injures herself on the job and has to seek medical attention for $10,000, then the cost of that accident was $10,000. You also hear about cost

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  • How Do You Reduce Workers’ Idle Time?

    • January 17, 2018
    • Posted by: David Marshall
    • Category: Management, Measurement
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    Social media apps on a mobile phone.

    I read recently that workers’ idle time is costing the U.S. economy over $100 billion per year. And there’s no one reason it’s happening — employees may goof off, they may take longer on breaks and lunch, a machine may break down, their managers may inefficiently assign work, or it just may be the nature

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