Understand What Flows Through Your Business to Find ImprovementLearn Management Articles on management-info.biz. Understand What Flows Through Your Business to Find Improvement article will help answer your questions on Management Articles.We at management-info.biz specialize in Management Articles. Management Articles at management-info.biz provides the most up to date news and articles. If you have questions please do not hesitate to contact us.
I remember once seeing a cartoon which showed two people working a counter. On the wall behind them was a sign which read, “Quality Work, Low Price, Fast Service – Pick Two.” In order to deliver all three, which is what customers expect, it’s important to understand the flows of your organization. The first flow is, of course, cash flow. This comes in two varieties, money coming into the organization, revenue, and money going out, expenses. Understanding cash flow is not as easy as it appears. Throughput accounting and Lean accounting are two methods some companies are using to try and get a better understanding of how cash flows through a business. The second flow is the product or service flow. This starts with how the product or service is designed. The next step is how the product is built or the service delivered. How is the product or service used? Finally, what happens when the customer is done is the product discarded, recycled, or consumed. How does information flow through the organization? How does it come into the company and how does it leave? How is it used in the organization, does it follow the work or pull the work forward? What types of feedback is received? How does material flow in the company? If a product is built, how are the raw materials or parts brought to the point of assembly. For a service, how do the necessary information, materials, and people get to where they are needed? How does the movement of the workers flow? Is the motion smooth or does it start and stop like rush hour traffic? Are there any wasted motions, like retrieving a paper file from a cabinet in another room or walking over to get a tool which is required for product assembly? Why is the tool at the point where it is needed? Why is the file located in a cabinet in another area? Creative flow is important to understand. Creative energy, like any other kind of energy, can be harnessed and managed. Does a research and development department create everything and the rest of the people just do what they’re told? Or are all employees thinking about innovation, how to reduce costs, looking at safety issues, reducing wastes, and improving the environment. Are people developing skills to identify, articulate and communicate those kinds of things? The final flow is time. Time is, of course, a factor in all the other flows. Since we can’t change time, rather than looking at how time flows; we need to see how the organization flows through time. How long does it take to accomplish things? Can the time be reduced? By reducing the time it takes to do our work, we reduce or eliminate the wasted things we do. Eliminating wasted brings us closer and closer to excellence. By observing the flows in our work, we can see where things run smoothly like a tranquil river. Bottlenecks in the workflow create turmoil, much like the rapids in a river. “Oh, this ol’ river keeps on rollin’, though, Any process, any product, any service can be made better in some way, somehow. So observe and understand the flows of your organization, it will lead to improvement opportunities. Copyright © 2005 Chuck Yorke - All Rights Reserved Instant Article Submitter. - Amazing Breakthrough Software Stuffs Any Website You Want Full Of Free Targeted Traffic. Starting A Child Daycare. - Complete business package to help you easily and quickly start your own profitable home-based day care business! Article Index: | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 | 31 | 32 | 33 | 34 | 35 | 36 | 37 | 38 | 39 | 40 | 41 | 42 | 43 | 44 | 45 | 46 | 47 | 48 | 49 | 50 | 51 | 52 | 53 | 54 | 55 | 56 | 57 | 58 | 59 | 60 | 61 | 62 | 63 | 64 | 65 | 66 | 67 | 68 | 69 | 70 | 71 | 72 | 73 | 74 | 75 | 76 | 77 | 78 | 79 | 80 | 81 |
More Articles:1. Can A Business Still Be Profitable When People Skills Are Absent? In our current world of rapid and amazing technological advances, many entrepreneurs have managed to dramatically limit the need for staff in highly profitable operations of all kinds.It is therefore tempting and believable to imagine that with every passing day, the need for people skills is diminishing. In fact most entrepreneurs are convinced that one no longer requires people skills to run a highly profitable enterprise. After all technology can do it all for you.This is both an unfortunate… 2. The Dark Side of Help Desk SLAs By Hallett German You just signed a Help Desk Service Level Agreement (SLA) and now think things will get easier. However, you may soon be falling into one of these traps:1) COVERING THE TRUTH WITH METRICSIn some companies, those under the radar of SLA compliance may resort to doing the minimum instead of really solving the problem. This includes closing or reassigning customer tickets just to meet the ticket queue deadline. While a review of SLA monthly metrics may look like the help desk is meeting or exceedi… 3. Saying One Thing, Doing Another... By Colin Shaw This week I was asked to speak at an internal conference for a bank. The subject was how to build a great customer experience. However, the reality was somewhat different to the title. I sat listening to speaker after speaker - all coming along with the same message “how can we stuff more products into our clients and achieve our targets”.As I sat there I started to think, why do people say one thing and do another? Do they really think people are that stupid that they cannot see the conflict … 4. Employee Motivation Made Easy! By Willis Brown I am often asked my secret to motivating employees. With over 20 years experience supervising and managing employees, I have found there is only one real key. That key is you must care about people. It comes so natural to me to ask an employee about his or her family, hobbies, problems, or recent accomplishments that I may be aware of. I’m sorry but this is something you can’t train people to do. You can, however, promote an atmosphere that encourages this type of employer to employee relatio… |
||||
