Headed into June with still no end in sight for this horrible economy. Hard to believe sales at the sign company are 50% of what they were in 2007. What can you do? Well there are some things you can do. First we looked at ways to cut expenses. It is important that the quality of the final product not suffer as a result of cost cutting. If that happens you are harming the company, no savings is happening. When quality suffers, costs actually go up. So we look for ways to slim down. We redouble our efforts to understand and improve our processes. One example. I have a nice young man as an employee. He’ll do anything you ask…. with gusto! Last week we made a sign for a church that was being sent several states away. The sign had to be packaged. Wrapped and placed between 2 pieces of cardboard, staples had to be placed around the perimeter. Easy enough, you say.
Today we are redoing the sign as the customer found 5 staples completely through his sign.
As far as processes go we can go back over this one. The key is not finding fault with the employee, but with the process. It does little good to simply say, “You must try harder.” Instead look at the packaging process and redefine it so this cannot be repeated.
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