Archive for August, 2008

Managerial Balance

August 25, 2008 at 12:55 pm · Filed under Manufacturing Managment

Managers sometime focus on one goal and forget other goals or try to achieve one goal regardless of its effect on other goals. For example a manager can focus on control and tries to have as much control as possible. This results in ZERO flexibility, bureaucracy,..and you name it.

If management was about achieving one goal then we would never need a manager but management is not easy because there are many goals, many constraints, and dynamic environment. It is very important to have a reasonable balance between different conflicting goals.

This balance changes from one company to another based on its strategy, product/service, customers…etc. For example, a company that adopts differentiation strategy will spend more on high quality of its services while a company that tries to offer inexpensive service will not spend that much. However, it is not a reasonable balance if we spend more than we can gain.

Examples:

  • Company and labor market: A manager may try to pay as less as possible and forgets that he will never get the best qualified people
  • Company and customers: A supplier may request Letter of guarantee for every transaction and forgets that customers may go to the other suppliers
  • Manager and employees: A manager may insist that a purchasing order should be thoroughly checked by 5 or 6 managers and forgets that the lead time will be very long
  • Manager and subordinates: A manager can focus on the relationship with subordinates regardless of the delay and mistakes they make
  • Manager and cost control: A manager can focus on cost control and forgets that some expenses will make future saving
  • Top management: A top management can focus on short term goals and forget the long term goals

Leave a Comment

How are you using e-business?

August 15, 2008 at 6:34 pm · Filed under Information Technology, Process Improvement

E-business is part of our life. Most companies are using e-business in some or all parts of its business. But the question is: What benefits have you got from using the e-business? Many companies achieved competitive advantage and improved their processes through e-business. Others have applied the e-business without achieving that success. Why did those succeed and those failed? Besides the technical problem that may arise, the following managerial reasons seems to be common in many organizations

  • There are many areas in which you can use information systems but you need to have priorities according to your situation, strategy, competitors, customers…This is not an easy task. Where to apply the e-business and how to apply it? It is not something that can be copied. The answer is unique for every company.
  • Meeting the customer (user) needs. Many information systems are not considering the users needs. It is very important to conduct system analysis and to understand the users’ needs. It is important to encourage the user to comprehend his needs prior to, during and after developing the system.
  • Data base updating. Some companies do not put enough effort in updating the data and make sure the data are correct
  • Top management support. Top management has a big role in changing the culture and showing great support to e-business.
  • e-business is accelerating the the failed systems. e-business needs some process reengineering to eliminate unnecessary steps and complicated systems. Otherwise e-business will result in automating those bad systems.

Leave a Comment

-Less waiting time

August 15, 2008 at 6:21 pm · Filed under Process Improvement

Less waiting time can be a competitive advantage in many services. In this article, I try to summarize many ways to shorten the waiting time:

1- No waiting: Can we avoid waiting? If the customer will wait to submit an application, then can he submit it electronically or send it by mail? If the customer has to wait to ask a question, can we make these information available in printed material or through a web site?

2- Transfer waiting to the customer’s home: Instead of having a large convenient area for the waiting customers, we can move this waiting to the customer’s home. If the customer can get the service done through the Internet then he will wait to get the merchandise at home. This makes the customer happier and saves us a lot of space. In addition, this decreases the waiting time for the customer who wants to buy from the store.

3- Improve the process:

  • minimize the sub-processes: study the different elements of the process and find those sub processes that can be done before the customer arrives or after he leaves.
  • Minimize the time of the process: Industrial engineering and process re engineering can help us decrease teh time of the process. This includes time and motion study, simulation, motivation, training, layout improvement, more use of advanced communication technology.
  • Quality improvement: bad quality means that we have to the work again which means waste of time and more waiting.
  • Improve supply chain: a better supply chain can help us have what we needs in very short time.
  • Decrease the variability: the less the variability the more we can control and forecast the waiting time.
  • Forecasting techniques: forecasting helps us expect the number of customer at differnet time of the day and different times of the week and different weeks of the year. This helps us get prepared by buying goods or scheduling the shifts or hiring extra manpower.

4- Management of organization resources:

  • Alliances: Alliances can help us get others do services on our behalf like the airlines alliances. This means we get extra capacity whenever needed.
  • Employees rotation: Having the employees trained to do different jobs means that we can get extra number of them in one area whenever needed. This flexibility can be used to decrease the waiting time.
  • Hiring part time employees
  • Cancelling some services at certain busy times: We can have some services cancelled in certain busy days in order to focus on the peak demand of other services
  • Inform the customer that his service was done: don’t ket the customer come and wait and then be told that his service is still not done. Let him know by phone or e-mail or a web site
  •  Decrease the tasks of the bottleneck: find the bottleneck and investigate all the possible ways to decrease the tasks assigned tot he bottleneck (a human-being or a machine)

5- Affecting customer arrival pattern:

  • Offering incentives: Try to mak discount or any incentive fr the customers in the non busy times
  • Having the seasonal goods on sale earlier than its season
  • use appointment system
  • Inform the customers about the busy times

Leave a Comment