The best way to learn your business may be from the shop floor, and the key to cost reduction and bottom line improvement can be learned where your products are made.
Harry E. Figgie Jr., who built Figgie International into a Fortune 500 company, always believed in the ability of United States manufacturing firms to compete successfully in world markets. He wanted all managers with bottom line responsibility to understand and practice profit improvement and cost reduction until it became a way of life. But more importantly, he wanted to share that knowledge with other businesses so that they could utilize these practices in their own work.
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Base camp advice
These lessons were intended for all businesses and are simple practices to implement. In an effort to create knowledgeable, experienced manufacturing executives, his advice was to have management and the executive team learn the business through the eyes of employees.
One tactic, especially for manufacturing companies, is to have management and executives attend welding school and CNC machine tool courses so that they really understand the shop floor. This tactic can translate to any business. The important lesson is to have your top management and executive team learn from participating in real projects.
One realization typically learned is that cost cutting is not a natural thing for most executives. Most top-tier executives are naturally driven by their desire to improve profits through increased sales. What they learn is that implementing cost-savings ideas into the company yields amazing and unsuspected outcomes.
Learning through employees, management and executives can have a unique perspective on process improvement through waste reduction and productivity optimized through workplace improvement. This includes the importance of implementing comprehensive cost reduction programs to make any business more profitable. Organizational analysis, ration analysis and enhanced efficiency have a direct effect on any business’s profits.
Other net benefits include gaining intimate knowledge of business operations, purchasing, research and development, product design, manufacturing and inventory control.
Programs to help
There are many key principals that will help your company explore the business and management principles of today’s profit improvement programs.
