If something goes wrong in a manufacturing business there occasionally comes a time when you have stop what you are doing and re-schedule the order books . Hopefully before you do this you will have worked out what had caused the problem and addressed that first. Some MRP systems will take care of this for you and some won't. If yours won't then I wanted to share this thought with you, in case your re-scheduling efforts seem to be in vain. I see many businesses who, when they are faced with a re-schedule, don't do a complete job. They do enough to level out the next few weeks of production and then hope that they can get away without doing any more. The next couple of weeks may go OK, but then the problems that were there beforehand start to amass, and a few weeks later your overdues are sky high again! If you need to re-schedule your order books manually then please make sure that you do the entire job in one go. Don't pick at it. Don't just do th

To mark the launch of the improving businesses website I am offering a 50% discount on products until the end of November 2013. The products include PDF versions of my business improvement books, as well as a handful of downloadable kits. The kits include work books, instructions, work sheets and presentation slides in most cases. To get your 50% discount, please enter the code  launch when prompted during checkout (just after you enter your name and email address). Click here to visit the website. Giles Johnston Author of 'Business Process Re-Engineering', a practical plan to improve business performance.

Developing a mission statement for a business is an interesting process. Firstly, it usually means that you have chosen some kind of vision for your business (the why / what question). Secondly, it usually means that you have some idea of how you want to realise the vision (the how). 'Mission Drift' is a term I heard a number of years ago and I think it is a good term to apply to our continuous improvement activities. If your business started to behave in a way that wasn't congruent with your values then you wouldn't achieve your vision. If your business started to work toward objectives that don't fall in line with your mission statement then you probably wouldn't end up where you wanted to be. Mission drift is when we fall away from what we were meant to be doing and do something else. In your business your continuous improvement activities will hopefully align with your vision and mission statements. If they don't then it might b

Now available in PDF format One of the nice things about publishing books is getting positive reviews. My book ' Business Process Re-Engineering ' has been out for some time now and I have now made it available as a PDF version. Since being available as a PDF I have received this review which I was keen to share with you. "I have been through more process mapping and sales and operation planning training sessions than you can shake a stick at. Your discussion is the simplest and most actionable I have seen. I like that your approach is relevant to small as well as large business." Brian Thank you Brian! To view a sample of the book (PDF format) - click here , or use the button below to buy. SKU EB-BPR Qty Price $ 5 . 00 Add to Cart Giles Johnston Author of 'Business Process Re-Engineering', a practical plan to improve business performance.

Years ago I was criticised for having numerous pieces of paper all over a wall in my office. This was when I worked as a Production Manager in a factory failing to hit its output targets *. Apparently it looked a little messy.... I needed to take action to change my factory's situation and one lonely Friday afternoon (when everyone else had gone home) I listed out the changes I needed to make. These formed the mini-projects that were all over my wall. Production was busy. Frankly it was chaotic and I chose to pin my mini improvement plans to my wall so that they were 'in my face'. Every time I walked into my office there were my plans. I certainly didn't forget about them. How many times have you crafted a much needed improvement plan but never gotten around to implementing the changes? There are many strategies we can take to improve how we deliver our projects and the idea of having the plans in bite sized chunks and highly visible is just one. I used this a

In a number of projects recently I have been playing a game of 'eye spy' to great effect. Can you remember that game from your childhood? You pick an object you can see and tell the other people playing what the object's first letter is. The person who guesses correctly first then gets to have a go. Pretty simple game. The approach I have used is to help my clients see whether a change has taken effect or not. For most business leaders they can use their KPIs as a gauge as to whether the change has taken effect. For the people who don't see the KPIs, but who are performing the new process, the eye spy game works rather effectively. To use this approach you need to be clear on the cause (the new process / tasks) and the expected effect (the new result / behaviour). The logic is that when the new process is embedded and working properly then you should be able to see the outcomes that you are looking for. There is sometimes a lag between the cause and the

'Making MRP Work' is now available in PDF format on our sister website improvingbusinesses.com . It has been for sale for several months on the Amazon Kindle device and will also be making its way on to the other main readers (Kobo, Nook, iPad etc...) shortly. In the mean time you can purchase the right version for your reader via Smashwords . I hope you enjoy it Giles Johnston Author of 'Business Process Re-Engineering', a practical plan to improve business performance   (and Making MRP Work!)