Productivity
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Increase Productivity to Reduce the Need for Hiring
- July 24, 2019
- Posted by: David Marshall
- Category: Measurement, Productivity
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Unemployment is low enough in this country right now that businesses (especially manufacturers) can’t find enough people to fill open slots. While you can always train your existing people to fill the new slots, you can come at the problem from another direction to increase productivity. This means you can produce more with fewer people
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Customer Confidence is Lost or Gained on Product Quality
- May 29, 2019
- Posted by: David Marshall
- Category: Business, Manufacturing, Productivity
A couple of weeks ago, I talked about how my old company changed an industry-standard method of production and acceptance of product quality by creating our own homegrown manufacturing process and instituting a policy of measuring every step of the process including cleanliness of the raw materials. Before that time, the standard reject rate was
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How We Helped the Oil & Gas Industry Save Millions
- November 14, 2018
- Posted by: David Marshall
- Category: Innovation, Productivity
When it comes to innovation, some companies look for problems to fix and then fix them. That doesn’t mean they create the problems. Rather, they look for a problem or a pain point that people might have and then figure out a way to solve it. Then they market that solution and hope the people
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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
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 Maintain the Right Inventory Levels
- August 15, 2018
- Posted by: David Marshall
- Category: Business, Management, Measurement, Productivity
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 You Reduce Your Transaction Costs?
- July 18, 2018
- Posted by: David Marshall
- Category: Business, Manufacturing, Productivity
In the non-manufacturing world, a transaction is an easy process. When you buy a shirt, you give money to the store, and they give you a shirt. That’s a transaction. In the manufacturing world, a transaction is a more involved process. A customer sends a purchase order that orders 1,000 shirts (normally, economists like to
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Why You Should Measure Your Scrap Output?
- July 3, 2018
- Posted by: David Marshall
- Category: Manufacturing, Productivity
In the past I’ve talked about the importance of measuring every part of a manufacturing company, from machine output to associate productivity. I’ve even said the back office people should be quantifiably measured too, including departments like HR and Purchasing, and even the executives. That also means measuring your scrap output. While it may seem
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Nepotism Destroys Company Culture & Productivity
- May 30, 2018
- Posted by: David Marshall
- Category: Management, Productivity
If there’s one thing I don’t like about companies is nepotism. If you’re in a family business, nepotism is a productivity killer. And it was certainly the cause of a lot of my headaches when I first started working at Robroy. In those early days, we were running three 8-hour shifts in the factory, and
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A Successful Company Needs Intrapreneurs
- January 31, 2018
- Posted by: David Marshall
- Category: Management, Productivity
A friend once told me he thought the people who were troublemakers were the ones who made the best entrepreneurs. They were the ones who got in trouble because when they saw problems, they found ways around them, or they challenged the authority figures, rather than toeing the line and accepting the status quo. These
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I Don’t Believe in Remote Work for Employees
- November 15, 2017
- Posted by: David Marshall
- Category: Business, Management, Productivity
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