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Showing posts from August, 2014

Factory Improvement Report

The upload of my free factory improvement guide is now on slideshare . You can view it below, or view the original PDF version by clicking  here . Giles Johnston ...optimising MRP systems and re-engineering business processes

Have You Found The Tools That Work?

One of my clients apologised to me the other day.... They hadn't done anything to offend me, but that's how they started the conversation. It turned out that they were apologising because they had stopped using a method to organise their office that I had shown them. Instead of being upset I congratulated them, why wouldn't I? From talking to them they had tested out the idea, decided that it wasn't their thing, and then taken the best bits of the method and created a modified version. They weren't using the method that I had shown them, they were using a method that fitted with their way of working. In my books that's called continuous improvement ! Stepping back from this conversation came the killer question: "Is your business performance better now than it was before we looked at any method to improve how it is organised?" The answer was "yes", they were on the right track and could develop their idea further. Wh

The On Time Delivery Dilemma

Some of my clients, when I first start to work with them, are struggling with their on time delivery performance. Apart from the frustration of dealing with problems constantly, the risk of losing customers is a big driver in terms of getting this issue resolved. In my opinion there are two main ways that you can focus on this problem. They can both work, but one is more effective than the other (I'll let you guess which). Option 1 - focus solely on despatching on time. This is the traditional approach. It is usually linked directly with turnover targets and has the entire business looking at what can be shipped today. Of course, you do need to make sure that your orders do get despatched (I have met businesses that don't), but this option drives a behaviour that lets people take their eyes off the rest of the process. So.... Option 2 - focus on 'on time start', with a controlled process, and having one eye on on time despatches. Having a tight process