Manage the Numbers not by Emotion

As a Leader of an Organization it is important that you manage your business by the numbers. However, it is easy to slip and make decisions based on your emotions, but that can get you into trouble.

Validate, Validate, Validate ... In God we trust, all others bring data.

Managing by the numbers is even more important as we navigate through these very turbulent economic times. All businesses are being impacted by tariffs either as a shipper or as a consumer. Customers still demand value.

Found this list of CEO | Key Performance Indicators to ponder followed by some solid counter-measures you can initiate to protect your numbers. The additional aspect is that as a CEO you will understand the numbers but how do your front-line Team Members decipher and support achieving the numbers?

MAP YOUR PROCESS

STOP & PAUSE and take your team to map your process from "Quote to Cash". It is critical to remember that this is not something that can be accomplished while sitting in your meeting room. Walk the process while documenting, speak to your people and make lots of observations. At minimum harvest data regarding Process Time (touch time), Cycle Time (Frequency) and the most important Complete & Accurate. After you have completed your map you and your team need to ... REFLECT

REFLECT

Look at your map and define within your process;

What is the process doing well?

What can be considered Waste in your process? (not necessary, non-value-add and eliminate)

What can be improved with the process?

I also typically spend a lot of time to find ... CADENCE

CADENCE

Every Process has a cadence, but you need to really look for it. For example is you have several people in Order Entry so orders can be instantly entered upon arrival but pick-tickets or work orders are only issued every 4 hours you have a significant opportunity to redeploy resources and balance your processes. Cadence can often be witness by watching .MOTION

MOTION

There are 2 types of motion. The first excessive motion occurs within a disorganized work environment as you watch your Team walk excessively to complete an operation or task. The second motion can be a bit more challenging to resolve that is the motion related to Material Conveyance. Create a Central Owner of your Material Conveyance and establish Bus Routes within your facility. Like Bus Routes, your Material Conveyance needs to run to a defined schedule and follow the same route. Your team will synchronize their activities to comply with the cadence of your Bus Routes. You can even establish a route for garbage ..

GARBAGE, WASTE & YIELD

Your waste receptacles is a haven of opportunities. Often we consumed energy to generate waste so looking closely at your waste can uncover ways to divert that lost energy towards adding more value-add activities. Another gem of opportunity is reviewing your off-cuts, turnings bucket and compare this to the product created. Every time you create a turning or an offcut you have negatively impacted your material yield. Get excited about improving your material yields. A focus on improving Yield reduces your material cost, but also reduces labour while increasing capacity ... you may need to be innovative including redesign of your product.

Shifting your focus from monitoring scrap to improving yield will deliver much higher dividends including forcing you to improve quality and enhance your engineering capabilities.

COMMUNICATE & CONTINUE TO TRAIN

It has been said ... "What happens if we train our people and they leave?, Worse is we don't train them and they stay"

Educate and Train your Team to have "Eyes for Flow" and "Eyes for Waste". Your team is at the point of action and they see many things so if we train them on what to look for they will provide many great ideas. Train and show them how to reduce set-ups and Change-Overs, and this includes office operations where the waste can be more silent and subversive.

Spoiler Alert, typically people are only concerned about what they are currently working on and what do you want them to do next. So share your schedule in smaller increments. The smaller increments also will provide you with greater flexibility in your schedule.

You will not find a bigger fan of Daily Management than me ... in minutes I can get a handle about the business, celebrate success and issue daily objectives. Not to mention a significant and noticeable improvement of employee engagement. Unfortunately, adopting this methodology faces the most significant resistance but delivers the best return.

NUMBERS

Ultimately, park your emotional management techniques and use a numbers first strategy. Your team will not know how to improve EBITA by 10%, but they will figure out how to load a trailer 10% faster ... so make sure your measurements can be linked.

If you have more ideas, need help or want to engage in a meaningful dialogue then make sure to connect with Mariela and myself.