Why Multitasking is Not Your Friend
Multitasking means doing several things at once. Individuals and leaders sometimes think this is a good thing because you are “busy”. However, it can be clearly demonstrated that multitasking is an inefficient process that can contribute to waste in any business. Learn more about the problems with multitasking and their solutions. Yellow Belt Table of Contents […]
Cost of Over and Under Stocking
In a manufacturing or retail environment, having too much inventory of products your customers don’t want and/or too little inventory on hand of what products your customers do want will cost you money and, consequently, profit. Many service businesses also have inventory even if it is items like stationary incidental to their main operation. This article shows you why under and over stocking costs and how to reduce the damage.
SM2.1 The Amazing 80/20 Rule Tool
Would you be interested in knowing a way to increase your productivity by 16 times!
Got your attention? The following material gives an insight into how this is possible.
SM2.11 80/20 Inventory Management
If inventory is something you have to manage in your business, the The Amazing 80/20 Rule Tool can have a powerful impact on Profit and Cashflow.
This is a Yellow Belt article.
SM2.5 How to do an 80/20 Data Analysis
We frequently refer to the 80/20 Rule in 12Faces. It assumes you can spot the best and worse performers among your products, market, staff and customers. This article explains the simple methodology behind quickly allocating each candidate to a slot in the rankings chart. Blue Belt
How to Reduce Variable Costs for Better Profit
Summary Especially in a manufacturing business, the variable cost of parts, resources and energy etc are likely to be a substantial part of your overall costs. This 12Faces Menu is a collection of distilled business wisdom relating to managing and reducing these costs. Variable costs are those that are directly tied to your level of production. If you produce more of an item, […]
SM4.0 Business Efficiency: Waste Reduction Introduction
Eight Types of Waste Business efficiency relies upon managing and reducing waste Here are 8 tested ways for doing this What is Waste? A straight forward explanation of waste is that it is anything that adds no value to the final product or service. This is something that the customer is not willing to pay […]
Manage Workflow and the Local Optima Problem
It is a very widely held belief in managing workflow for business that each station in a production line should be working as hard as it can in order to maximise its efficiency. This might be a car assembly line or an accountant’s office processing tax returns using several different stages in the accounting process. […]
SM4.1 Eight Types of Waste
The well-known Toyota car company identified seven types of waste that had an impact on Productivity and Profit. An eighth has been added more recently. By gradually reducing these wastes, you can improve the Productivity and Profit of your business. In Japanese, this is referred to as reducing “muda” (pronounced Moo-da). This article discusses how these types of waste might show up in […]
C2.4 Optimise100 – Cost Reduction
The fastest way to improve your profit is to reduce the costs in your business!
However, we need to bear in mind that this is a very limited step. If you save costs to the ultimate degree, you no longer have an operating business! Clearly there is some point below which cost cutting can damage the business rather than improve profitability.
Nevertheless, it is very often the first step undertaken by businesses and very often is undertaken without much discrimination.
We often see overly simplistic cost reduction exercises where, for example, 10% of the staff are made redundant across the board without giving thought to necessary skill sets and the products and locations that are to be maintained.
This Yellow Belt project illustrates a number of cost centres that you can consider overhauling on your road to Optimising Your Existing Operation in 100 Days.