Smooth Out the Speed Bumps

Look for all of the hidden, unnecessary steps you take every day to streamline your workday for optimal profits

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To be competitive in today’s marketplace, you have to do one thing: Serve customers ten times faster than you do now. “What?” you may be thinking. “How is that possible? I’m already too busy and overworked.”

Realize that everyone thinks they’re already too busy. Unfortunately, a large part of people’s busy-ness is the fact that they’re repeatedly picking things up (products, parts, paperwork, etc.) and putting them down.

In the process of picking the thing up, you have to remember what you were originally doing with it and what you need to do next. In the process of putting it back down, you have to bookmark it somehow so you can continue working on it later. On top of that you have delays and redundant or unnecessary processes that slow you down. So while you are indeed very busy, you’re often not productive.

The fact is the slower you are to meet customer demands, the more money your company is losing. Things like long lead times, slow turnaround times, unnecessary steps, and sheer carelessness cost you in terms of repeat business and referrals. So what exactly is causing all the redundancy and slowness? The speed bumps of business. Beware of these things in your own company so you can reclaim your lost profits.

 

Stocking large amounts of inventory

How big of a parts or consumable product inventory do you have sitting on the shelves in your warehouse every month? Many people think that large warehouses and fully stocked shelves are a good thing. In reality, it’s a huge money-waster because the carrying costs on inventory are expensive. Not only are you paying people to make the unused product, but you’re also paying for warehouse space, people to manage the inventory, utilities at the warehouse, etc. The costs quickly add up. Let your inventory get down to a manageable level that requires less storage space and therefore less money.

 

Unnecessary movement of products

When you have too much inventory, you often have to move it around. Product movement increases your chances of having damaged goods or workers could get injured in the process. Workplace accidents increase worker’s compensation costs. The less inventory you have, the less movement (and less damage) your products will face. If you don’t store it, you don’t have to move it.

 

Unnecessary movement of people

Many people complain about their commute time to work. But how much commute time are you or your staff doing while at work? For example, do people have to walk across the office or even to a different area of the building just to pick up their printouts from a central printer? Are they walking from workstation to workstation to complete a simple task?

In many companies, commute time while at work can be immense. In fact, it’s not uncommon for people to walk the equivalent of over five miles a day in a relatively small workspace just to do their job. Anytime people are moving too much, you need to redesign the space. This may mean using a number of smaller printers rather than one big central printer. Or it may mean bringing workstations closer together so there’s less movement.

Think of your work area like a kitchen, where you have your stove, sink, and refrigerator forming a triangle. The closer that triangle is together, the less distance the chef has to travel to prepare a meal. When you can cut down on people’s at-work commute time, you’ll see a marked increase in productivity.

 

Unnecessary processing

In many processes, workers are doing unnecessary steps. For example, one company had an inspection process for incoming goods. However, in the many years they’ve done the inspections, they’ve never found a single bad product. So the question is, if their suppliers have proven to be good and reliable, why is the company still doing the inspections?

Any step that proves to be unnecessary wastes both time and money. Think about how many reports you receive that you never read. Why is someone still creating that report for you? Consider how much customer information you gather that you never use. Why are you still gathering the data?

Just because your company has always done something a certain way doesn’t mean you’re doing it the right way. Examine your processes to discover what’s really necessary and what’s simply waste. Then get rid of the wasteful steps so you can speed up your process.

 

REACH YOUR GOALS FASTER

While many people believe they can’t work faster because they’re already too busy, the truth is that you can be a lot faster without being busier. The key is to examine every aspect of your company to see where you have waste, redundancy, or just downright slowness. The good news is that you’ll likely find only 4 percent of your processes are causing 50 percent of your troubles. In other words, you won’t have to fix a lot to see a marked improvement. In the end, the more productive you can make your people, products and processes, the greater profits your company will realize.



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