RISK and REWARD in times of windfall profits…
In this Sunday’s New York Times, Paul Wilmott states his opinion regarding investment bankers and their propensity to take risks. In his article “Gone With the Windfall” he states, “It’s a very big and rarely questioned assumption that trading requires talent…the talent that is in demand is less about knowing whether a stock is going up or going down, but more about having the nerves of steel to cope with making or losing a small fortune in the blink of an eye.” In my 30+ years of working with manufacturing companies, I have found quite the opposite. That is, especially American Manufacturing, Executives rarely take risks. They seem to work in old ways and tend to follow each other like sheep without considering the basics. What can we do to really understand our production (and supply chain) process and focus our time, talent and resources on measuring and improving the process within the walls of each factory in our control?
Beyond the evaluation of labor efficiency and asset effectiveness, is the basic need to understand the flow of work on the factory floor and try to measure it, identify slow and wasteful activity, make small changes and measure it again…and again. Manufacturing will not survive in the country if we continue the culture of looking at manufacturing as an “inventory based entity” instead of a value added process-managed provider. With value coming from an effective flow of production, timely delivery of materials, effective use of assets and paperless factory floor systems with easy-to-use interfaces that allow the labor force to help themselves improve the process. Yes, let me state it again…allow the work force and first line floor management to get involved with information systems. That level of involvement is the “blocking and tackling” required. Let’s try to focus and improve the basics at the floor level before we make decisions on new equipment and fancy metrics. Let’s take some risk; Move out of the office and stop reinventing the wheel of ERP inventory based planning systems and put technology on the playing field of producing product with real execution level knowledge.
Posted on: Dec 14, 2009
0 comments - Categories:
