This continues our series on how to improve your business operations to grow your business

In our last post, we discussed streamlining your production line or processes . We alluded to how bottlenecks cost you money by slowing production and increasing costs. A bottleneck occurs whenever new product arrives at a workstation faster than the workstation can process it.

While streamlining can eliminate some bottlenecks, others may require special attention and solutions. We will examine the cause and effect of bottlenecks in businesses. Then, share some ideas for resolving them.

Cause and Effect of Bottlenecks in a Business

Bottlenecks occur in manufacturing lines, clerical processes, or any sequential work done by different people. Companies create bottlenecks without meaning to do so. Causes of bottlenecks may include:

• Faster workstations or employees feeding into slower ones
• Multiple workstations consolidate into one process or workstation
• Missing workers in the production or process line for meetings, vacations or illness
• Workstations that do not have the materials needed to process what comes
• Workstations impacted by slow, broken, or inappropriate equipment or systems

You may use several tools to identify existing or potential bottlenecks:

• RACI analysis to identify who is responsible, accountable, consulted, or informed in the process
• Flow charts allow you to chart visually the flow of work and identify bottlenecks
• Ask “Why?” as you look at a bottleneck. Then, analyze that answer with another “Why?” until you’ve asked “Why?” 5 times

Reduce or Eliminate Bottlenecks

Mindtools suggests that you have two basic options to eliminate a bottleneck

• “Increase the efficiency of the bottleneck step”
• “Decrease input to the bottleneck step”

PlantRun, an international consulting firm on downtime manufacturing information, adds:

• “Optimize the speed of machine or work”
• “Ensure the bottleneck machine is well maintained”
• “Provide a constant buffer of stock upstream of the bottleneck” (Great idea!)
• “Reduce time wasted in set ups and changeovers”
• “Train more operators for the bottleneck” step & use them to unjam bottlenecks
• “Run bottleneck steps longer than others” (Start earlier/end later)
• “Improve operator efficiency and competence”
• “Improved time management”
• “Improved motivation” for workers

Come back Saturday to analyze if outsourcing or drop shipments will enhance your operation

This continues our series on problems at work that can cost you your job or stall your career

Previously, I shared the vital importance of doing three things on the job. First, do the job they want done. Second, fit into the team or organization. Third, give a good return on their investment. Hygiene, dress, and appearance create visual examples of how well you fit into the organization.

Poor Hygiene Can Offend Supervisors & Co-Workers

Poor hygiene stalls more careers than one would imagine. Generally, you should:

• Bathe once a day or multiple times a week
• Wash and brush your hair frequently to keep it clean and neat, not oily or disheveled
• Avoid heavy perfumes or colognes that trigger allergies or discomfort in others
• Brush your teeth at least twice a day, use mouthwash and breath aids
• Use caution with foods that create odors in your skin or breath (like garlic or onions)

Dress Similarly to Others in your Job or the One You Want

Written and unwritten dress codes establish the uniform for work teams. Nobody would seriously consider a football player who showed up for the game wearing a basketball uniform. His or her dress would convey that they did not come to get the job done.

You must wear the uniform of your work team to fit into the team. Recognize that if you send the message you don’t want to fit in, management will comply with your desires and send you away.

In addition, dressing similarly to people doing the job you wish to do conveys your aptitude and fitness for the promotion .

Appearances Send Messages for Good or Ill

I do not think work teams should all share the same skin color, ethnic or gender appearances. I hope we, as a country, no longer discriminate on race, creed, color, religion, and gender.

Consider the image the company wants to project. Let your mentor and network guide you about how to match your appearance to the one the company wishes to portray.

Return on Friday to explore the dangers of inappropriate comments, jokes, emails, or more

This continues our series on how to grow your business by improving your operation

Inefficient layout of production flow costs businesses millions each year. Your business may not lose millions, but you may lose money without recognizing it. The term production flow in this context goes beyond a manufacturing line. It includes all business processes: accounts payables, accounts receivables, sales & marketing, supply chains, and even management.

Possible Bottlenecks in Your Operations

Inefficient processing flows increase the time needed to get things done. Bottlenecks created through poor process flow slow down results. Several factors lead to inefficient flow:

• Paperwork sitting in an in-or-out box for 2-3 days impacts cash flow and more
• Paperwork or manufacturing flows that do not follow straight line flow or that crisscross the manufacturing floor
• Production in various countries with customs and tariff costs or delays
• Small problems in your warehouse can delay shipping your product by 1-4 days

How to Streamline Your Manufacturing and Other Processes

Business Knowledge Source suggests how to simplify and streamline manufacturing operations:

• Identify where your production falls down through slower or faster workers
• Ensure your employees perform at peak performance by training them effectively
• Eliminate or consolidate any complicated or unnecessary steps in the process
• Keep things organized. Give workers 10 minute breaks to clean their work area
• Hire a consultant to help you identify and implement additional improvements

Other processes will reduce processing time and streamline your processing flow:

• Purchase Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) software to monitor your processes
• Implement processing models: LEAN Processing, Agile, KANBAN Pull production or others
• Move workstations closer together to reduce transport between countries, buildings, etc.
• Eliminate slow workers or increase their speed with the right equipment or training
• Use a RACI analysis to evaluate people overloaded with responsibility, accountability, consulting, or information, then reassign functions based on improving processes
• Evaluate the countries in which you work and connect with brokers or economic development groups who specialize in imports, exports, and offshore manufacturing
• Join user groups, your local manufacturers or other professional associations

I hope these ideas help you begin to evaluate the potential bottlenecks, detours, and challenges affecting the processes in your business. A lot of resources can help you improve and streamline your workflow.

Join me on Thursday when we focus how to improve your operation by reducing bottlenecks

This continues our series on problems that can lose your job or stall your career

Rude and obnoxious behavior remains a major cause of stalled careers and terminations. Many times, you may not even recognize your behavior offends people. Conversations around the copier or after hours can deteriorate into unhelpful gossip, murmuring, and back-biting. All of these behaviors may lead to bad feelings, offended personalities, or reprimands.

What May Constitute Poor Behavior

I recognize the challenges affiliated with poor behavior. I created this problems for my own career on four different occasions.  The first and second times, I did not recognize that my behavior offended people. The third time, I asked questions and opinions that appeared defensive and cantankerous.  The fourth time, I doubted my superiors and murmured about their decisions. I made serious mistakes that cost me promotions and resulted in two demotions. My behavior was wrong and unprofessional.

Alina Tugend, at the New York Times, describes the descent into incivility occurring today. I suggest that you read the article.

Examples of cantankerous, obnoxious, and rude behavior include:

• Interrupting people, especially supervisors or management, when they are talking
• Try too passionately to influence or change decisions already made by management
• Raise your voice or use a tone that could be considered offensive or contentious
• Tell offensive jokes or stories that might make people uncomfortable
• Talk too loud in a cubicle environment, and take phone calls during meetings
• Gossip or back-bite about management and other workers to fellow workers
• Appear defensive or contentious in conversations, messages, or meetings
• Criticize, demean, or ridicule management, its directions, or its policies

Improve Your Behavior and Repair Relationships

Excellent books and training can help you learn to communicate more effectively. I suggest just a few:

• Crucial Conversations, Kerry Patterson and his colleagues at VitalSmarts
• Crucial Confrontations, again by Kerry Patterson and his colleagues at VitalSmarts
• 301 Smart Answers to Tough Business Etiquette Questions by Vicky Oliver
• Repairing Relationships is an article by Whitney Hoffman

Join me on Wednesday to find out how hygiene, dress, and appearance affects your career

Using the proper equipment in your business enhances the productivity, efficiency, effectiveness, and quality of your product and your operation. Good office equipment improves your office support. The right manufacturing equipment will not only speed up your production line, but also improve its quality. Warehouse equipment moves your inventory safely and accurately. Yet, too many companies use the wrong or obsolete equipment.

The Importance of Using the Proper Equipment

Gallup Management Journal listed Giving Your Employees the Right Equipment as the 2nd element of Great Managing.

“When Gallup researchers analyzed hundreds of work dimensions in search of those most predictive of success, it was no surprise that materials and equipment showed up as fundamental. While many of the other 12 Elements, such as talking with employees about their progress, are primarily psychological in nature, the Second Element is both psychological and excruciatingly practical. Workgroups that don’t have the right supplies can’t produce. Universally, teams that produce have what they need to get the job done.”

They state in an article titled Why Employees Need the Right Equipment,

“When Gallup researchers went in search of the aspects of work life that are most important to performance, one that emerged earliest was measured by the statement “I have the materials and equipment I need to do my work right.”

Identifying the Proper Equipment

BDC Entrepreneurs provides some tips for making the right equipment purchase:

• Assess and understand your business reality. Identify exactly what you want the equipment to do
• Get an external point of view from a consultant if your business warrants it
• Be innovative in acquiring equipment or technology
• Look at your business as a whole rather than making isolated purchases
• Shop around for suppliers that provide a wide range of specialized equipment
• Keep training in mind and consider the time, money, and resources required to do it
• Consider the advantages and disadvantages of financing options: purchasing, leasing, or renting
• Think safety first and include safety and protective equipment
• Keep it green when purchasing equipment or technology

Come look at the post on Monday when we examine how to streamline your production line

This continues our series on problems at work that could get you fired or stall your career

Your performance and productivity affects how your supervisor perceives your value to the company. Great performance and productivity reflects well on future raises and promotions. Poor performance and productivity, however, decreases your perceived value. Continued poor performance or productivity jeopardizes your job and future career.

Why Poor Performance or Productivity Stalls Your Career

Your company hired you to produce a certain amount of product or service. They pay you a salary to perform as they expect. Failure to produce what they expect indicates that they will not see a positive return on their investment. Continued poor performance and productivity leads them to believe that you will never deliver what you promised when they hired you.

How to Resolve Poor Performance and Productivity

You might improve your performance and productivity with the following steps:

• Clarify exactly what they expect of you in terms of
  • Productivity: how much they expect you to produce or deliver
  • Effectiveness: what they want that to accomplish
  • Efficiency: how much time, money, or resources they expect you to use
  • Quality: the excellence of the work the company expects of you
• Identify a mentor and network of connections to help you improve your performance. Let them assist you to
  • Nurture your skills and abilities
  • Understand how the company works more effectively
  • Connect with the people who contribute to your production
  • Set realistic goals to improve your productivity and performance
• Increase your productivity and performance until they meet expectations
  • Work harder based on the advice of your mentor
  • Work smarter using the information and abilities your network gave you
  • Work faster, but more accurately, under the direction of your supervisor
• Measure your performance each day, week, or month
  • Compare actual performance to expectations and performance goals
  • Create a graph to easily see your progression and improvement
  • Create home run statements that illustrate your improvement
  • Show your graph, and share your home run statements,  with your supervisor

Improving your performance and productivity restores the company’s faith that you provide a good return on investment.

Join me on Monday when we discuss the problem of cantankerous, obnoxious, & rude behavior

This continues our series on improving the operations of your business

Purchasing materials, supplies, and goods impact the profit of your company. Raw goods constitute a major portion of the overhead of manufacturing companies. Decreasing the cost of goods and materials could significantly increase your profit margin. In addition, small office supplies that slip through your fingers can increase your overhead. Identifying bulk discounts saves money. Today, we will discuss tips and suggestions to better control your purchasing and raw product orders.

Sources Where You Can Find Tips about Purchasing

Several web sites offer suggestions about purchasing supplies, raw materials, or goods. Here are a few you may want to try:

• Business.com offers tips about Purchasing Resources for Office Supplies 
  • “Taking full-advantage of the Web sites of major office stores can: save time, save money, and save your sanity.”
  • “Cut web time to a minimum with one-click ordering and even personal sites…with pre-set shopping categories”
  • “Ask about discount programs if your company has more than 20 employees…talk to your stores small-business re about volume discounts and special small business ordering.”
  • Buy store brands: “office stores will happily sell you their own brand of their highest volume (and highest margin) products, sometimes at  substantial savings.”
  • “Go to the warehouse-shopping route. Office stores will often cut you a deal for buying in bulk.”
  • “Get personalized office products and services”
• Keith Taylor shares a slide show 10 Ways To Improve Your Purchasing Department
• Bastian Solutions provides Tips for Purchasing Material Handling Equipment Online
• Next Level Purchasing describes Service vs. Manufacturing Industry Purchasing
• The Institute for Supply Management shares articles about supply chain issues
• Gartner Group shares an article on the role of procurement risk management
• Supply Management gives information about large corporate purchasing practices
• WiseGeek also gives good advice titled What are Procurement Best Practices

Managing the purchasing, procurement, and risk management of your business contributes directly to your profits. Make the investment to study these sites.Join me Saturday when we explore how to use the best equipment

This continues our series on problems that can get you fired or stall your career

Businesses expect employees to arrive at work on time. They expect workers to report on the job on the days and shifts assigned. They expect employees to return from lunch and breaks on time. Businesses feel they dictate terms of employment in exchange for the salary, benefits, vacation, and leave they give. They expect employees to meet those terms and suspect employees who do not.

Why Business Owners View These as Problems

Persistent tardiness, absenteeism, and returning from breaks late raise concerns in the minds of your employers and supervisors. They consider that you may possess a:

• Lack of commitment to the company
• Lack of self-discipline that means you will also not complete the work assigned
• Poor time-management skills that could manifest themselves in your work
• Lack of respect for the company or it’s management and values
• Rebellious streak towards the rules, culture, and systems of the corporation

Companies will give you a certain amount of sick leave. They generally do not expect you to use all of it. The less you use the better.

What You Can Do to Resolve the Problems

Several actions will help resolve the concerns listed above:

• Change your behavior
• Always show up for work at least 10 minutes early
• Plan for emergencies and delays in your commute
• Call your supervisor if you will be late and explain why
• Return from lunch and other breaks a minute or two early
• Get enough sleep, eat healthy, and exercise to stay healthy
• Avoid situations that could expose you to contagious diseases
• Communicate your changes to your supervisor and management
  • Apologize for your mistakes from the past
  • Assure them that you will change
  • Explain what you will do to reduce tardiness, absenteeism, or late breaks
  • Share home run statements highlighting the success of your changes

Your employer wants to know that your commitment to the company remains strong, that they can rely on you.

Join me on Friday when we examine how poor performance or productivity is a problem

This begins our series on maximizing satisfaction and profits by improving your operation

In the past, we’ve explored marketing, financing, establishing your strategy, and legally structuring your business. This series will explore how to improve your business operations. Traditionally, human resource/legal, sales/marketing, accounting/finance, and information technology merely supported operations. Operations typically received raw product, processed it, and delivered it to the client. I will use a modified definition of that understanding in this series.

Defining a Business Operation

Each business, each industry operates differently.

• Manufacturing businesses operate production lines that machine, assemble, smelt, or extrude a product
• Insurance, banks, and finance companies process paperwork and electronic records
• Retail operations receive goods through loading docks, store them, move them to shelves, and out the door by way of a cashier
• Internet businesses prepare pages, shopping carts, program interactive elements and publish them
• Architects and engineers create ideas, draw designs and plans, test them, and finalize the blueprints or plans before building them

Clarifying Your Business Operations

The following questions may help you clarify how your business operates :

• What supplies, intellect, materials or other elements do you need to make, process, or create our product or service? (We will call the answers to this question “raw material” in the rest of the post)
• What do you do with that raw material to make process, create or add value so that your clients want to buy it?
• Who are all the people involved in touching, reviewing, modifying, or processing the product through the operation?
• What workstations, systems, or assembly points does it have to pass through to be finished?
• What have you not identified that should be added to these questions?

Ways to Enhance Your Business Operations

Each of the following steps might improve your operation. We will analyze each option over the next three weeks:

• Purchase and order raw product
• Streamline processing design or layout
• Use the proper equipment
• Identify and eliminate bottlenecks
• Reduce time spent on each section
• Outsource and drop ship
• Control inventory
• Ship or deliver product or services

Come back Thursday when we discuss purchasing and ordering raw product phase of operations

Today we begin a series outlining problems that can get you fired or stall your career

I work with a lot of people that find their career stalled. Management passes them over for promotions. Management neglects to give them plumb assignments, nor include them in key meetings. They receive no or low raises. They receive the first pink slips when layoffs or terminations occur. Too frequently, they do not understand why these things happen to them—repeatedly. They often complain and ascribe their problems to others: co-workers, supervisors, subordinates, and clients.

Problems You May Create

Many times we create the problems for ourselves without recognizing it. If these problems persist, you may lose your job or find yourself dead-ended within the company:

• Persistent tardiness, absence, extended phone calls, lunch or other breaks
• Poor performance or productivity
• Cantankerous, obnoxious, or rude behavior
• Bad hygiene, dress, or appearance
• Inappropriate comments, jokes, emails, or other communications
• Obsolete or inadequate skills
• Work related drinking, drugs, or testing problems
• Mistakes or losses at work

Problems Others May Create

In addition to the problems we create for ourselves, others may also create problems for you:

• Cliquish, aloof, and exclusive co-workers
• Office gossip, back-biting, sabotage, and back-stabbing
• Unsupportive, demanding, and critical supervisors
• Impossible deadlines, unrealistic expectations, and lack of resources on the job

Whether you create the problems or someone else does, you need to resolve them or face negative consequences. Continued poor practices or problems severely affect your advancement or growth. I know. I possess personality problems that cost me a job once and continue to prevent my promotions. I’m working on resolving them, but have not made enough progress in the past 11 years. I hope to share ideas for you, if you find yourself with a problem that can get you fired or stall your career.

We will explore each of these reasons over the next four weeks.

Join me next Wednesday to learn more about tardiness, absences, and extended breaks