Ask Andi: We need to increase productivity. Our work is labor-intensive. We don’t have the money to throw at the problem right now. We’re wasting money doing things inefficiently. But afraid to make an upfront investment to improve profits. What should we do?
Thoughts of the Day: Increase productivity at work to make the most of the workday. Don’t try to solve the entire problem at once. Use trials to see what has the greatest impact. Ask vendors for financing terms. Think two steps down the road.
Increase productivity at work
Before trying to implement automation solutions, make sure you have an efficient work process laid out. You may find cost reductions simply by better organizing workflow. At the very least, eliminate glitches in the current workflow, so that problems don’t carry over into the new automation systems. Prioritize your most important tasks to increase productivity.
Form a project improvement team, made up of people who are doing the working day-to-day. Ask them to step back and look at how work is handled, from start to finish. Assign a specific group to analyze repetitive tasks and find ways to streamline them.
Organize tools, materials, and personnel. Make the most of commonly used materials and systems the most accessible. Cut out time wasted looking for used items by assigning locations for everything. Figure out ways to standardize, leading to efficiency with training, ordering, and quality management.
Reduce idle time and waiting around by changing the order in which tasks are completed. Consider assigning specialists to handle tricky as well as repetitive activities. Build routines by handling repetitive work at the same time each day, or week, if possible.
Define standards for acceptable work products. Sometimes “good enough” isn’t. Other times the effort to produce “the best” is wasted on customers who would have been happy with “good enough”. Find out exactly what customers want, and build those requirements into what’s produced. Consider opportunities to raise prices as delivery speed and quality improvements.
Benefit from an increase in productivity
If problems crop up repeatedly, find out why. Look for glitches due to lack of material and equipment, as well as the need for training. Higher than expected error rates are warning signs. Once the bugs are out manually, only then is it time to automate.
In today’s fast-changing automation world, solutions are plentiful and can range in price from extremely expensive to downright cheap. Some options work better than others. Many of the end-to-end solutions don’t produce as much efficiency at each step as smaller, more targeted solutions.
Once the project improvement team has laid out optimum workflows, have them research automation solutions. Suggest they look at smaller solutions to start, picking pieces of the system to automate. Ask them to set up a process for looking at, and evaluating options.
Don’t just rely on proposals to gather input. Find out what works, and what doesn’t by visiting companies, and talking with people who are working with the tools you’re considering. Look for parallels to work done in your company. Explore the benefits of handheld tools – for minute-by-minute data gathering and information exchange.
Sit, think and plan
Encourage debate. Focus the team on finding the best solutions. Keep people from getting trapped into defending an option just because they’ve researched it.
Build a budget and a priority timeline. Don’t confuse expense with value. Prioritize automation solutions as most likely to reduce waste, and make work go easier and faster, resulting in better quality outcomes and higher profits.
Pick one or two solutions to start. Budget money for training and downtime as people learn to do things a new way. Ask vendors for help with training and financing.
Don’t try to pay for everything upfront. Finance the purchase, giving improvements time to pay for themselves. Predict the return before making the purchase, and hold everyone’s feet to the fire to deliver profits as predicted.
Encourage the team to look ahead for 3 years and debate how work and customer demands will change. Ask them to consider what will need to be handled faster and cheaper, and what will be eliminated. Build a timeline and budget to implement changes, taking into account their future forecast.
