"I need to lower my costs,
improve my quality and increase production. What should I specifically be looking for and
at during Industrial Trade Shows?" H.L., New Jersey
"I need to lower my costs,
improve my quality and increase production. What should I specifically be looking for and
at during Industrial Trade Shows?" H.L., New Jersey
THE INDUSTRY ADVISOR
THE MAGIC BULLET
By Gene Levine - www.genelevine.com
Even though there may be equipment or products that can solve some of your
issues, in my opinion, your magic bullet would be to find companies or institutions that
specialize in management training within our industry. Proper training will give you
everything you seek and more. Here are my reasons why.
Ask a typical labor intensive product's executive what his or her most important asset is and immediately and inevitably they’ll answer, "My people." Probe them further and ask, "Why?" and you may not get as quick or accurate a response. The answer is; people are the most important asset because when they are correctly trained, they are the only company asset that appreciates in value.
Why then is people development left to guesswork and chance while executives focus their attention on developing the business through technology? The issue may begin with bankers. Bankers who make the loans look at balance sheets and machines show up on balance sheets while people do not. But why buy more machinery or technology when output on the available machines has not yet been maximized?
I’m empathetic to those executives who believe training will improve the bottom line but won’t make the necessary investment because justifying it is too difficult. They feel a machine is something that can be seen and held while training is not so predictable. But proper training can be also be seen when it results in desirable and essential changes in employee’s behavior.
One would think a person should be upset when they’ve paid for something and didn’t get what they paid for. Yet, some executives lose out everyday and never seem concerned. They can’t see their oversight. They can’t see that they’ve already paid for the cost of training (by accepting the high costs and unresolved issues undertrained and underutilized employees generate) without getting its benefits. New machinery or technology cannot alter that executive’s thinking anymore than an aspirin can heal a cancer.
No amount of technology will change the fact that labor intensive industries have high labor costs. So don’t get too caught up in the trapping of machinery. I doubt if there will ever be a savior machine invented which will find your product's materials being stuffed in one end and finished goods – in the right combinations to match sales figures – coming out the other end. I believe we should desire and seek to develop such equipment but I wouldn’t fire my workforce while I’m waiting for the prototype.
Companies cause their own problems by failing to realize that something that General Patton realized long ago when he said, "Untutored courage is useless in the face of educated bullets". Since there’s a difference between desire and results how can companies expect to meet their business challenges when its people have desire without knowledge? Failure is encouraged when it senses a lack of knowledge.
Lately, the big question is, "Where is this industry headed"? Well, if yours is a company that complains about the threats from local or global competition, spiraling costs, apathetic workers and so on, here’s a simple test to determine if your company is going to survive . . .
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