Commodity Businesses, Throw Out Continuous Improvement!
onsider throwing out the old rule book; turn your thinking upside down in favor of innovation and value-add.
Sarbanes Oxley
Meant to protect investors and increase transparency in corporate accounting, implementing the Sarbanes Oxley Act takes some organizational introspection
Implementing Processes
In my experience, processes are discussed and debated expertly; however, many times, they fail in execution.
Tips to Reduce Operational Costs
In today's economy, there is no doubt a large focus on reducing operational costs (whether they are the traditional operational costs of a business or the day-to-day personal operational costs).
Defining and Controlling Costs
Navigating growth gets tricky if you lose perspective on spending. Keep costs under control by identifying the spot where people, process and technology work best.
Innovate or Die
In today's economic environment, slow and steady progress, a continuous improvement philosophy and a low-cost producer, commodity focus will likely result in death.
Keys to Plant Management Success
To succeed in today's environment, it is no longer desirable to have a world class operation focused on providing a value add while maximizing resources; it is a requirement.
Leverage the Transferability of Best Practices
It has recently occurred to me that businesses are missing a huge opportunity to leverage the transferability of best practices. Although as a business consultant, leveraging best practices has been an "assumed" part of the value I provide clients, even I missed the boat and forgot to leverage this [...]
Quality
Even the founder of lean principles, Toyota can falter on quality; thus, anyone can lose their edge - yet it is cornerstone to business success. View quality from your customer's perspective - what matters is what your customer expects when agreeing to purchase the product or service. Be vigilant [...]
Safety
Bedrock - always appropriate. I want to thank my mentor in this topic, Debra Daniels for her expertise – Debra, have I incorporated your wisdom appropriately? Build safety into the culture – most safety programs are pointless as they are considered an outside program (and many times, meetings are [...]