management
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How Modern Leadership Creates a High-Performance Manufacturing Team
- June 19, 2024
- Posted by: David Marshall
- Category: Leadership, Manufacturing
No CommentsFinding the ideal employees in any organization can be tough. It doesn’t matter what industry you’re in, the customers you serve, the work you do, or the jobs you’re hiring for. It’s tough finding quality employees. But too many employers try to find exactly the right employee who has all the right skills and can
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Your Company’s Management Style is Driving Off Employees
- June 12, 2024
- Posted by: David Marshall
- Category: Leadership, Management
Manufacturing does not have the reputation of being progressive or forward-thinking when it comes to management style, allowing their employees to grow and develop, or considering their employees’ mental health and feelings. Maybe you think it’s soft and you think, “We never had any of that nonsense when I was young! We just sucked it
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No More Company Cars
- June 5, 2024
- Posted by: David Marshall
- Category: Business, Management
I’ll admit, I hate the idea of company cars. They’re a royal pain in the ass and they cause a lot of problems and strife within a company. One thing I did whenever I started in any new leadership role at a company was to eliminate the company cars completely. After all, we were in
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How to Stay Competitive in a Global Market
- April 24, 2024
- Posted by: David Marshall
- Category: Innovation, Management
We are truly in a global market these days, and the cost of production in the United States makes cheaper overseas production much more attractive to a lot of buyers. Despite the push to “Buy American” and other campaigns, overseas manufacturers are slashing costs and paying their workers a less-than-optimal wage. That makes it a
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The 5 Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) Every Manufacturer Should Measure
- April 17, 2024
- Posted by: David Marshall
- Category: Management, Manufacturing, Productivity
Every manufacturer keeps track of their output and how many units they’re making and selling each month. (At least I hope they are! I’ve seen some operations where that’s a valid question.) But not every manufacturer measures the same KPIs, but they’re absolutely critical to keep track of on a monthly, weekly, or even daily
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New Tech Doesn’t Always Solve Old Problems.
- April 10, 2024
- Posted by: David Marshall
- Category: Business, Management
Last week, I talked about how I made sure our organization had the right discipline when it came to adopting an inventory management system. My concern was that if we didn’t have the right processes in place and the discipline to stick with them, then a new piece of technology wasn’t going to solve the
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Adopting a Smart Approach to Inventory Management
- April 3, 2024
- Posted by: David Marshall
- Category: Business, Digital Transformation
Remember the old days of inventory management, when you had to walk up and down the aisles of the warehouse, carrying a clipboard and counting every single piece of inventory, comparing it to what you had on your printout? Everyone rejoiced when software companies came out with inventory management software, and they clamored to introduce
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How Managers Can Keep Unions on Their Side
- March 27, 2024
- Posted by: David Marshall
- Category: Leadership, Management
I had a rule as a manager that I would never take union leadership by surprise. If anything, despite the traditional “management versus the union” conflict, I always believed they were an important part of my team. For example, if I was ever thinking of initiating a new process or major idea, I would share
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How to Develop Good Habits as a Leader
- March 20, 2024
- Posted by: David Marshall
- Category: Leadership
Good leaders are always open to new ideas about how to become better leaders. They don’t assume they know everything, especially as they ascend to higher and higher positions. They know their strengths and work to make them even stronger. They know their weaknesses and work to make them, well, stronger, too. You don’t have
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Perform an Annual ABC Analysis to Find New Profits
- March 6, 2024
- Posted by: David Marshall
- Category: Management, Productivity
According to the Pareto Principle (also called the 80/20 rule), you’re wasting a large portion of your time on items and customers that don’t actually have an ROI for you. That is, 20% of your customers bring in 80% of your results, and 20% of your inventory brings in 80% of your sales. Conversely, 80%