Getting inventory right can make or break a business. Too much inventory increases costs and ties up cash. Not enough inventory and your product or service cannot be delivered. So here’s how to get the right balance. 1) Predict less Spend less time trying to predict exactly where and when inventory will be needed. 2) Don’t ‘Push’ Inventory Don’t ‘push’ inventory…
Re-designing a process is a waste of time and money if that process isn’t used. A colleague asked me how to get processes to stick and deliver real benefits. Here’s how: 1) Assign a Process Owner This works best if the process owner is the most senior manager possible for that type of process. A process owner is responsible…
Businesses regularly undertake improvement activities, but we don’t often stop to ask: “Will these activities improve the business’ return on investment (ROI)?” To answer this question it is important to know that there are only three ways to improve ROI. These are well summarised by the ‘Theory of Constraints’1 : 1) Increase Throughput Throughput refers to the dollar value of goods…
Businesses become difficult to manage when leaders think about business structure before the business process. When we think about business structure, we tend to focus on the organisational chart, who reports to who, the quality of our people as well as the setup of functions and departments. ‘The problem with this approach is that it…
