A Brilliant Strategy Without Operational Excellence is Doomed Production is an Engine for Profit The production function can be a potent profit-generating machine. Traditionally, managers have regarded the production function as a necessary evil, a prerequisite to the real business of making money. This perspective is widely echoed in textbooks: the goal of production is “to …
“Productivity is the act of bringing a company closer to its goal. Every action that brings a company closer to its goal is productive. Every action that does not bring a company closer to its goal is not productive.” Eliyahu Goldratt The Theory of Constraints (ToC) challenges you to build your company to last – to …
A Framework for Strategy; The Ever-Flourishing Company Read More »
Decision Making – Focus on the Goal Almost every manager is aware of Pareto’s law, the important few – the trivial many which is often thought of as the 80/20 rule. 80% of results are generated by 20% of the actions. To improve your effectiveness, one only need to focus on the 20% and you’ll get …
In my previous post about checking your assumptions, I talked about the rules and requirements about your process. The supply chain is no different. After all, rules are made, boundary conditions established around how you deal with your suppliers. Therefore, you should also look at your supply chain policies to find possibilities to increase output – …
Reconsider Your Rules on Materials and Suppliers Read More »
To increase output, whether in a disaster or in everyday pressures, you must challenge your assumptions to find solutions. Usually, the solution is not obvious (otherwise, it would have been implemented, right?), so you have to dig deeper. Challenging assumptions helps us see where we can change the process. There is still more to get out …
The more contractors or departments involved in a project, the more chances for variation and, often, more confusion. There is always the opportunity for misalignment and miscommunication. The larger the organization, the more opportunity for missing cues on priorities and direction. For the process owner, the challenge is to align a team to drive progress towards …
Manage and Align Performance by Applying Uniform Standards Read More »
I was recently posting a Visual Portfolio Board for a customer and before we were even finished posting all the elements, the board had already begun providing real value. Just seeing the big picture of an entire portfolio of projects allowed the managers to understand relationships and issues they had never seen or understood before. In …
Have you ever worked on a project that didn’t have a clear goal? By “clear goal” I mean one that is fully defined, stable, lacks any ambiguity and is shared among the relevant stakeholders. Why is this so important? Can’t we just start with, say, “The goal is to deliver machine X”? Unfortunately, such vaguely defined …
We’ve all seen promising initiatives get started with hearty organizational enthusiasm only to gradually die out, not meet full expectations, or get displaced in favor of ‘new thinking’. Having been the individual responsible for many such initiatives, I’ve learned (often the hard way) that it pays to “stack the deck” at the beginning of the project …
“Stacking The Deck” – Embarking on a Major Process Improvement Initiative Read More »
In my previous post about checking your assumptions, I talked about the rules and requirements about your process. The supply chain is no different. After all, rules are made, boundary conditions established around how you deal with your suppliers. Therefore, you should also look at your supply chain policies to find possibilities to increase output – …
Reconsider Your Rules on Materials and Suppliers Read More »
