Whilst driving to a client's this morning I caught a few minutes of a debate on the radio about increasing productivity. It was a very general discussion, of course, but there was one part of the discussion that caught my attention. The host of the show asked the guest (a member of the UK government I believe) why productivity wasn't increasing in the country when we have so many devices available to us to allow us to work remotely and deal with our emails before normal working hours. As you would have noticed, productivity is not  measured as the host indicated: Productivity ≠ everything you do / the length of time taken I'm not sure how widespread this mis-understanding is, but it raises an interesting point about how many people are measuring the wrong things when it comes to either their own, or their business', productivity. When you work in a manufacturing environment calculating productivity can be relatively straightforward. You may measure the t

At one of my clients I have been running a shop floor improvement project to create a new manufacturing cell with the apprentices. I think that there is always some good learning to be had from improvement projects and I was keen to expose the apprentices to some additional experiences. However, the last few weeks of the project have not been going to schedule and not wanting to miss the learning potential I asked them what they had learned about implementing a project of this nature. They summarised the discussion that we had as being: I wanted them to summarise the discussion as these key 'words' / phrases might stick in their heads a little longer and help them to avoid the same pitfalls in the future. I can't fault the words that they chose and the team nicely linked them together as indicated in the sketch above. I have summarised their comments as follows: Planning Good planning is essential and in particular having accountability and realistic target

When businesses are struggling to deliver their products and services on time I often see the conflict between the doing tasks and decision tasks. It seems to be a balance that most of us have to deal with at some point in our careers and I think that most of us have a natural preference. As we progress through our job roles we move from lots of doing to lots of decision making, and in-between will be that balance where we find that just working harder won't be the solution. However, when there are decisions to be made in a business it is important for us to be aware of which side of this balance we are leaning towards.

I'm pleased to announce that my popular KPIs book is now available in paperback via Amazon. The book is aimed at Operations Managers and Directors that need to define key performance indicators that will help the business to improve their performance levels. If you need to improve your on time delivery rates, reduce your costs or improve quality levels then this book can help you get you on your way. If done right, your KPIs can help you to react and steer your business in the right direction, not just tell you how bad (or good) things have been! To get your copy of the book please visit: US :  https://kdp.amazon.com/amazon-dp-action/us/dualbookshelf.marketplacelink/1521247986 UK :  https://kdp.amazon.com/amazon-dp-action/uk/dualbookshelf.marketplacelink/1521247986 Enjoy the read, Giles About the author Giles Johnston is a Chartered Engineer who specialises in helping businesses to grow and improve through better business processes. Giles is also the author

Time is a funny thing. As a society we often contemplate it, and some of us (including me!) have written on the topic of managing it as best we can. So, why is it that there are so many improvement, delivery and project plans that seem to ignore the simple maths that lie behind the scheduling of activities?

On my travels I hear the phrase "it won't work" an awful lot. Do you hear it too? So many good improvement ideas are lost to this statement.

I have some good news to share! Earlier this year I was awarded my fellowship with the Institute of Engineering and Technology.

I was reminded last week of a conversation I had with a mentee of mine from a few years ago. My mentee was try to work out how to improve their personal productivity and after reading a number of books on the subject was feeling confused. I gave them a simple challenge to try and it worked remarkably well. Here it is, so that you can try it out for yourself.

Many times when I speak to a business for the first time I have to get past their mask. The mask I am referring to is the perfect business process maps that they cling to. To get into meaningful business improvement activities it is vital that you can get past the process maps that adorn your walls and quality management systems and get into the ‘warts and all’ reality of your business’ activities. This article looks at three areas that can help you jump start your improvement activities when you are mapping out what takes place in your business.

Have you ever gotten to that point on a shop floor layout improvement project where you feel confused and unsure whether you are ready to implement the solution? You've done the planning, had the debates and then found yourself (and your team) going round in circles. Why not stop and walk through the proposed solution?

Often when I am faced with a new project, and there is a productivity / on time delivery issue the topic of 'role drift' comes up. As I hinted in the title of this blog post when the various roles within a business are focused appropriately on producing specific 'deliverables' productivity usually follows. Or, put in different ways:

I often get asked the question " am I on the right tracks with my improvement journey? " Whether this question is posed by new clients, old clients, email subscribers or via my websites it doesn't matter. At times we can all feel lost with our improvement projects.

How many people have you spoken to about continuous improvement and striving to run your business the way that it should be run? Do you ever get the response that they have run out of steam and that they no longer feel that their voices have been heard? I hear this from many people when I work with different businesses, but there is usually a way out of this position.