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There might be several improvement options you have missed…

I was in a meeting today where the topic of options came up for a restructure of a business unit. These sorts of topics don ’ t normally come my way, but the nature of the conversation was the bit that piqued my interest. It was clear that there was already an option on the table, and because of this option every other alternative was being ignored. In many cases, the other options usually contain good, or better, results than the one being discussed. Getting stuck with the first option that comes your way is not often a great strategy. Being stuck with just one option can limit the results that can be obtained. What if the ideas of the rest of the team members could be mixed up to produce new ideas? It is often the partial ideas of others that can allow a new and improved solution to be stitched together. I recall working with a group of apprentices and their ‘ half-baked ’ solutions (as their former manager called them) were able to be linked and this resulted in a quadrupling

New material added to the Making It Happen programme

Nine new modules have been added to the Making It Happen programme, my online course sharing straightforward and effective continual improvement strategies and approaches. The really good news is that have all been added to the free month section of the programme! (You can find out more about the Making It Happen programme at  http://www.making-it-happen.website/ ) This means that the free month of the programme now includes: On day one you get access to the  Productivity Boost  modules: The End of a Process A quick review of your main business processes’ effectiveness by focusing on the last step in the process. Hour of Pain An effective strategy to buy some time to help you with your improvements. Measuring Your Productivity If you don’t know where you are now, how will you know when your projects have made a proper contribution to your business? Personal Losses If you don’t know where your time gets sucked away to you will be less effective

Free OTIF and Productivity Course

Would you like a tour through my You ’ re Late!!! guide, to help you put the ideas into action? If you sign up for my email updates using the link below you can download my guide right away and then receive fifteen emails over the next fifteen days to help you get the most from the ideas and strategies that are in the guide. You ’ ll get help and advice on:          Driving up your OTIF performance.           Prioritising your improvement plans.           Building a team around you.           Making sure your improvement plans realise their results.          Getting stuck projects moving. I hope that you ’ ll find the email course to be really useful. All the best, 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 of Business Process Re-Engineering and creator of the ' Making It Happen ' continuous impr

Do you want a high performance operation? Don't go off track!!!

I was in a fast food restaurant the other day. KFC was shut due to the chicken shortage and I used one of their competitors. Don't judge me, I had just gotten over the flu and now I was hungry! My experience was fascinating; this other fast food business was in absolute chaos. Their staff were all looking confused, food was building up in a pile on a table near the serving area and it took me nearly twenty minutes to get my order... No, this isn't a sob story this is a reminder to all of us that we need to stick to our operating rules (when our rules are right, of course). The business in question is usually a fantastic example of a well oiled team with a slick operation , but with a slight increase in custom they tried to adjust their system 'on the fly' and got it wrong. In this business everyone knows what they have to do, when they have to do it and how well they need to do it. On this particular visit I could see supervisors trying to 'help'

Losing the Cape – now available in PDF format and on iBooks (and more)

Yesterday I got notification that my book ‘Losing the Cape’ is now available on iBooks. Losing the Cape is written for those of you that are fed up with the constant fire fighting that takes place within your business and want a way out of this situation.

What if your team just don't understand the 'why' behind your changes?

Change can take a really long time for some businesses to engage with. I don't mean the kind of rapid change that our businesses need when things are going wrong, I am talking about the longer term improvements that we all need to engage with. Do you ever watch your staff / colleagues agree to a new way of working, only to watch this approach ebb away after a few days or weeks? There may be a million reasons why the change doesn't stick. I'm sure that you can think of a whole host of reasons just off the top of your head, I know I can!

'Takt Time' book now available in paperback

My next book to go through paperback conversion is Takt Time . Now available on Amazon, this book explains the Takt Time principle to help you better understand the degree of change you need to make in your business.