Productivity

  • I Don’t Believe in Remote Work for Employees

    • November 15, 2017
    • Posted by: David Marshall
    • Category: Business, Management, Productivity
    No Comments
    Doing remote work at a coffee shop. It's fun, but not a good community builder.

    This one is going to make me unpopular, especially with today’s modern marvels of broadband technology, video conferencing, and our ability to multi-task and work anywhere in the world. I don’t believe in remote work for employees. (Not a big shocker, I’m sure, since you already read the headline.) But I believe that if you’re

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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
    No Comments
    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 I Doubled Output By Cutting Head Count by Nearly Half

    • March 15, 2017
    • Posted by: David Marshall
    • Category: Business, Management, Manufacturing, Productivity
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    A factory floor with storage rack. That's the sign of great materials management.

    When I first started with Robroy, we needed an awful lot of cleanup, not only because the facility was dirty, but because there was a lot of nepotism in the organization that resulted in an awful lot of unproductive people working for us. Nepotism is never a good idea in an organization, and we had

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  • The Time I Locked My Own Son Out of a Meeting for Being Late

    • March 8, 2017
    • Posted by: David Marshall
    • Category: Management, Productivity
    No Comments
    This wristwatch can't help you be on time, it can only tell you what time it is.

    I’m one of those sticklers for timeliness. You know, “early is on time, on time is late.” That idea was drummed into me very early on in my career. It means if you have a meeting at 10:00 a.m., you don’t show up at 10:00. You show up at 9:55 so you’re ready to start

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  • Optimizing Productivity Through Plant Workflow Measurement

    • February 1, 2017
    • Posted by: David Marshall
    • Category: Business, Manufacturing, Productivity
    No Comments

    In a manufacturing operation that measures everything, it’s especially important to measure the operational time of your plant and its associates, to ensure they’re being as productive as possible. Some people call this measurement “time keeping,” but that term can also be confused with associates clocking in and out in the course of a normal

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  • How Document Management Improves Productivity, Lowers Costs

    • December 21, 2016
    • Posted by: David Marshall
    • Category: Innovation, Measurement, Productivity
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    Rows of filing cabinets. Document management rendered these a thing of the past.

    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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  • Cut Your Bottom 10%: Using an ABC Analysis to Find Your Lowest Performers

    • November 13, 2016
    • Posted by: David Marshall
    • Category: Measurement, Productivity
    No Comments

    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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