Let’s not forget that in addition to increased sales, profits can be boosted by reducing expenditure and more productive use of time. One of the simpler ways of doing this involves performance management software. It’s common knowledge that making the most out of your business necessitates a knowledge of in what areas each and every one of your employees perform most strongly, and a knowledge of how to customize your routines to suit. The chief problem has traditionally been in finding and collating this information.
To look at just one facet of this — employee appraisal— defining progress and being able to track it is a significant amount of work. First of all, you set up employee evaluation techniques to evaluate and track the work carried out by each employee. If this was done with conventional methods, you now have to examine all of that information by hand simply to define goalposts, and keep track of future progress.
Utilizing performance management software you’ll find that this preliminary work is taken care of and you need only look at the different metrics and factors to determine what the right targets for this employee would be. It also renders keeping track of the employee’s development much easier. Thus you ease a significant time commitment while probably receiving more useful information. Should you wish to it’s possible instead to carry out your own assessment, simply using the software to create and maintain a record to work from. Not only that, but helping make your employees more efficient is only one improvement that can be implemented using performance management software. It’s also valuable to study clients and suppliers to be better able to reduce costs by precision buying. Knowing the suppliers that offer the better quality and lowest priced products can cut costs significantly.
Clients have their own metrics of efficiency, and once again it’s possible to streamline your processes and help your bottom line. Then, you can customize your ordering and stock handling to increase your profits while minimizing spending. Who wouldn’t want to take advantage of that? Not only that but the better awareness of your market will allow more efficient marketing.
Performance appraisal software can study your suppliers to save money and scrutinze your market to customize your plans and increase your profits. In tandem with regular talent assessment and employee assessment this application will certainly simplify employee performance management significantly. To summarize, it’s clear that the potential of this system is endless and depends entirely on your ability to use what you learn…
As any good managing director knows, individuals are the greatest asset of any organization. And just like financial assets, if you don’t pay attention and take steps to encourage their development and evolution, they often begin to stagnate and become less fruitful over time. Lack of employee engagement is usually not a highly visible phenomenon. A individual can seem occupied without being fruitful - doing their job without observable flaws, but also without significant accomplishment over time. Withdrawn employees aren’t usually complainers - in fact, they look to be content and trustworthy. Perhaps they’ve even noticed ways your organization could better its processes and cut expenses - but without a culture of employee participation, they may not have a supervisor who is willing to listen, or be able to identify another outlet for their ideas. As a result, they may even be utilizing company time and resources to look for opportunities elsewhere. Here’s a list of potential best practices to implement: from the top Business Coach in Charlotte:1. Direct departmental or group-based inquiry to find how your employees feel about their jobs, and how they see the company overall. This will often supply a wealth of data to lead you in your efforts to improve their job performance and the overall success of your organization thereby.2. Create involvement activities that reach out to all employees. Some examples: employee recognition each quarter, rewards for wellness program participation, and incentive opportunities tied to suggestions for improvement.3. If your company doesn’t already have an employee participation program, get one! Consult organization development sites and executives at other businesses who have a proven working model and can share worthwhile “lessons learned” that will trim your trial and error process.The more that each employee is shown how your company values their input and daily contribution, the more your company can - and will - benefit from the creativity and enthusiasm that exists at the heart of every human being. People are your most precious asset - so invest in them and reap the rewards of that “win-win” approach to business!
It’s belief in many businesses that, as long as all of their employees have enough health & safety education, they have got everything they need to prevent a disaster. The truth is that, irrespective of the industry you’re in, basic training in health & safety regulatory affairs just is not enough. Equipping your staff, selecting good supervision and supporting frequent practise are crucial to the safety at work.
Anyone in a supervisory job has a bigger function to carry out than simply supervising the work area. Your selection of supervisor needs to be a good communicator and see health & safety education as fundamental. On top of observing rules and regulations, a supervisory role also usually includes supervising employee performance levels. Naturally it’s not easy to achieve all this at once. An accomplished supervisor is advised to possess excellent knowledge of both the business and production as well as an advanced understanding of current legislation regarding safety, risk assessment and first aid. Just providing basic training in health & safety really is not enough for your workers. Your employees must gain practical experience of risk assessment and the identification of hazards. Staff need to know how to eradicate safety hazards and how best to cope when something goes wrong. Not until these processes have become a habit are staff properly protected.
Safety equipment is equally as critical to the safety of your employees as the instruction itself. If they do not have the proper gear or alternatively if staff discover that equipment is damaged only after an emergency has occurred, the safety training your staff have already taken is basically for nothing. It is essential to perform conscientious checks on a regular basis to make sure that all the required apparatus is where it should be as well as checking that everything is functioning properly. When you have a issue with your safety gear, have it repaired or call out a service professional as a matter of urgency. Your workers have to get appropriate health & safety training, however they also require quality supplies, the opportunity to practise, and a knowledgeable supervisor who gets the workforce to be enthusiastic about working safely. And then adopting health & safety legislation will be established in your business culture not an inconvenience everyone has to attempt to think about constantly.
A new design for residential, recreational as well as office space in Birmingham’s Jewellery Quarter has been planned out for the commercial development of the area. This St Georges plan on the site, which spans 2.75 acres, actually holds a lot of promises for a number of people who will find it an ideal place for shopping, working as well as living.
Redesigning the Kettleworks factory will be the first phase of this development project. The factory that manufactured tea sets and copper kettles had actually started as a brass foundry. The developers are trying to keep the external structure in place and improve upon the inner structure to come up with an office fitout of premium-type office space.
Chord Deeley, the developer for the project, is working in collaboration with Online Architects Limited and Urban Initiatives to try and retain the basic character of the 1890s architecture while giving a modern touch to the historic Jewellery Quarter.
The first phase of the project, to be undertaken at an estimated cost of £160 million, is expected to be completed by autumn next year, though the entire project will take about three to five years for completion. The project has received positive responses from the residents as well as commercial houses, as it is being seen as beneficial for the city as a whole.
The project involves creation of low cost BREEAM-centric office space spread across an area of 236,000 square feet, in addition to two new hotels with as many as 250 bedrooms and separate residential units. it also includes safe parking spaces. An additional 12,000 square feet area has been approved for bars and restaurants.
Numerous companies feel that, by offering each member of staff some education in health and safety, they are sufficiently equipped to manage an emergency. The reality is that, regardless of the industry you’re in, staff need more than simply basic education in health and safety and risk assessment. You must provide your staff with a capable supervisor, the appropriate equipment, and last but not least regular practice. Someone in a supervisory capacity has a much larger role to carry out than simply managing the shop floor. A supervisor is required to see their health and safety training as essential and be able to share their enthusiasm about it.
In addition to enforcing health and safety legislation, the supervisor furthermore should check that each employee performs to the best of their abilty. Naturally it isn’t easy to accomplish all this at once. It means that the supervisor is expected to have extensive knowledge of both the industry and production as well as an in depth understanding of current regulations with regard to safety, risk assessment and emergency assistance techniques. Just supplying health and safety training isn’t enough for your employees. To successfully discover a safety hazard they require to put their new-found skills to the test. Staff have to know how to eliminate safety risks as well as knowing what to do if the unexpected happens. Your workers are only protected when their training and procedures have become routine. Instruction is in fact ineffective without safety equipment. Without the right gear or alternatively if workers see that items are not working correctly when they are required, then all the education your staff have completed will have been basically for nothing.
You need to perform detailed checks regularly to ensure that you are in posession of all the necessary equipment and that it’s all being properly looked after. If you find your equipment isn’t in good working order, have it repaired or call out a service engineer as quickly as possible.
Your workers need to have good health & safety training, but they require the correct apparatus, scheduled practises, and a knowledgeable supervisor who can get the workforce excited about being healthy at work. When you put this advice into practice you should find that health and safety legislation will become a natural part of life in the workplace rather than an inconvenience for employees to remember.
Pacific Quay Hub developed along the Clyde by the development company Downtown Space targeting at the creative companies in Glasgow has done very well in spite of recession. The predictions were that the building might not be occupied. However, half of the building has been leased out already while the building was finished only in February this year.
The real estate development company Downtown Space is marketing the building well as an addition to the creative focus of the city. The area already has offices of BBC Scotland, STV, the Glasgow Science Centre, Galaxy Scotland radio and Film City Studios which makes it an in-demand area and adds to the attraction of Pacific Quay Hub.
The building and office planning provides hi-tech offices with modern design. It is being called the ‘heart of the new Digital Media Quarter’. It offers 65,000 sq ft of space, which has been split into different offices spaces ranging from 129 sq ft to 7922 sq ft to ensure that everyone can find the space they want.
Current occupants of the building are Shed Media, the Glasgow School of art’s Digital Design Studio and many IT firms. Digital Studio is expected to move around 70 employees into the commercial building by September of this year. This will make the number of total occupants close to hundred. The two new lessees Safehinge (a design business) and Caboodl (a social media company) will occupy the office space of 180 sq ft and 450 sq ft respectively.
A prosperous business depends on the competent management of people. You may acquire and develop these techniques. It may be an advantage to have a natural affinity for getting along with people, however you can do some things that will help the process.
Build relationships: Addressing people by name should be a start. Encourage conversation; look individuals in the eye as you are speaking. Have a respectful attitude, also be attentive to everything the other person says, irrespective of whether you are in agreement with them. The development of listening skills is among the best things you can do to improve your human resources management skills. Be sure to exhibit interest in what they can offer the team.
Exhibit integrity: Keeping your promises is key. If you can’t keep your promises, the delicate bond of trust is broken, and no-one will offer you their best if they can’t trust you. Everytime you make a statement or give a promise, you are wasting your time and effort if you don’t act with integrity. The truth is, if you can’t be counted on, they will not be there when you actually need them. Encourage feedback: Feedback should be a reciprocal process. Human Resource management skills mean having an open mind to all feedback. If you can show that you are accessible and receptive, you establish that you appreciate your co-worker’s ideas, your opinions will be respected in return. Welcoming open discussion in addition promotes development of fresh ways of thinking, original methods of achieving goals, and strengthens the team. By giving the employees an input, each member of staff invests in the project’s outcome.
Encourage all sorts of communication: Good communication is the key to managing staff with skill. Keeping an open door policy, employ listening skills, encourage all sorts of feedback, and give team members an equal voice. Employees should be encouraged to talk to each other not just with you. The exchange of ideas is imperative in the creative process, if the team communicate openly, it becomes easy to discover issues before they might present as a problem, allowing corrective measures to be implemented to prevent any further problems.
This may take some effort, even so the rewards are worthwhile. Through establishing the bonds of a good team and by listening to your team’s ideas, a successful business can be achieved.
Training managers use many of the same interpersonal and analytical skills that other types of departments use. In particular, they need to be good communicators, and highly skillful in interpersonal relations. They need to delegate effectively, support their staff emotionally, give accurate and timely feedback, and set departmental goals that are consistent with organizational goals. Barbara L. Thornton, an independent training consultant in the St. Paul area, says that training managers need to exercise leadership skills in guiding their people. “[A good training manager is] a good coach,” adds Robert Bertschy.
Outside the department, the training manager plays a role that is part public relations, part strategy. After all, your staffing levels depend on your organization population, their needs and the budget allocated to your department. Your most important goal is to insure the strength and relevance of the department in the larger picture. Once you return to the training department with a mandate from the organization, and, hopefully, the support necessary to implement that mandate, the training manager’s focus must change. Inside the training department, getting, keeping and motivating a staff of highly talented individuals is your most important function. Everything the department does, and how it is viewed, is affected by how skillfully you help your people manage themselves.
Sharon Burns offers the following tips for the training managers interviewing prospective trainers. During the interview, look at the applicant’s questioning skill, how they get information from you. Does the applicant have a logical thought process? Does the applicant equate training with corporate business? She has personally found that psychology graduates with good interpersonal skills sometimes out-perform former classroom teachers, who have to unlearn old habits when faced with adult learners. Larry Lottier suggests having the applicant do a presentation for the department. Does he or she come across as a performer? Is the presentation boring? Have department members present for the trial training discuss the applicant’s classroom style how well would this person wear with the group as a whole?
New trainers, once on board, need seasoning and supervisory attention. Our interviewees identified some of the common mistakes that new trainers make which a manager can help them to sidestep. Overall, most managers agreed that new trainers usually are too dependent on prepared lectures, and too easily affected by the personal need to be liked. “A new trainer will spend too much time lecturing, clinging to instructor notes,” Additionally, most new trainers have not had enough expeosure to different cultures, and will either misread the intentions of their trainees’ questions or blame unsatisfactory feedback on a lack of interest in the subject, not their own style or content. New trainers need help with listening skills.
The key to good trainers is a good training manager.
Copyright AE Schwartz & Associates All rights reserved. For additional presentation materials and resources: ReadySetPresent and for a Free listing as a Trainer, Consultant, Speaker, Vendor/Organization: TrainingConsortium
CEO, A.E. Schwartz & Associates, Boston, MA., a comprehensive organization which offers over 40 skills based management training programs. Mr. Schwartz conducts over 150 programs annually for clients in industry, research, technology, government, Fortune 100/500 companies, and nonprofit organizations worldwide. He is often found at conferences as a key note presenter and/or facilitator. His style is fast-paced, participatory, practical, and humorous. He has authored over 65 books and products, and taught/lectured at over a dozen colleges and universities throughout the United States.
Answering the question of what Supply Chain Management is, is as simple as breaking down the phrase into its component parts. Supplies are those inputs that a company relies upon to produce the product that will ultimately reach its customers. The chain is the group of suppliers that bring those inputs to a company and the process whereby those inputs are integrated into the company. And finally, management is the coordination and organization of all these inputs and their implementation. So put it all together, and Supply Chain Management is the science and art of improving the processes that bring suppliers of raw materials together and move those materials through the company until they reach the endpoint, the customer.
What SCM Involves
If defining the term takes a full paragraph to cover even in its most basic sense, you can imagine how complex the industry surrounding Supply Chain Management truly is. It involves managers who map out the entire process and look for inefficiencies and others who develop and maintain relationships with suppliers to ensure a steady supply of inputs. It involves the actual process of manufacturing or value add in which those inputs become the products that will be sold as well as “logistics” or the process of getting those value added products to customers. And finally it involves dealing with and compensating for supply chain returns, such as defective products. Supply Chain Management covers every aspect of the business from input to output and as such requires an extensive array of tools and strategies to help managers to coordinate and organize a
company.
The Dilemma of SCM Software
One of the most innovative and revolutionary tools in use by managers involved in the supply chain is Supply Chain Management Software. While I have outlined five general sections that make up Supply Chain Management, each of these sections is unique to a particular business. As such, no single product has been developed to handle the software needs of a company from start to finish. As a result, when industry insiders talk about Supply Chain Software, they are really talking about a combination of many different programs that, when applied together, help manage the supply chain. While literally thousands of different products are on the market today, they all fall into one of two broad categories, Supply Chain Planning (SCP) or Supply Chain Execution (SCE) software. Supply Chain Planning software covers those programs which use advanced mathematical algorithms to map out the flow of products through a company and to identify any inefficiencies. The ultimate goal of this type of software is to help reduce faulty products, to speed up the time to market, and to reduce inventory. Supply Chain Execution software is designed to automate different components of the supply chain. For example, Supply Chain Execution Software might update inventory listings in a central directory as soon as inputs are brought in from a supplier or are sold off to the customer. In this way, SCE software eliminates the costly and time consuming task of tabulating the total current supply so as to know when to place the next order.
The Goals of Supply Chain Management
Ultimately the goal of Supply Chain Management is to bring greater efficiency to a company by reducing errors, maintaining steady inputs, and reducing excess inventories. With the growth of the internet, however, it is transitioning into a means of collaboration between companies. By concentrating their efforts on better communication with suppliers and customers, inefficiencies are ironed out not only within the company but in those surrounding it as well. The internet has made the communication between firms necessary for this to take place possible. Consequently, the hope for Supply Chain Management in the future is not only to create a more efficient and profitable business, but to contribute to a more efficient and profitable global marketplace as well.
Dan Johnson enjoys writing about supply chain management. Visit www.scmlowdown.com/ to learn more.
Listening to seasoned musicians play jazz can be a rewarding experience. Even if we are not jazz enthusiasts, we can appreciate the talent that becomes quickly evident, as melodies are created in a seemingly spontaneous fashion, but with notes flying together in an underlying theme.
What isn’t evident, is what’s behind this top-level performance. There certainly is obvious physical dexterity — the ability to produce what is required upon demand. But, playing good jazz requires agility as well as ability — the innovativeness to continually introduce new ideas in response to the mood created by the notes just played. Each phrase has to be linked with the next for continuity. There must be integration of thoughts and ideas.
The best excitement is created when teams of musicians improvise to create new harmonies. The players have mastered the rudiments, become very dexterous, agile and adroit, and trained themselves to be spontaneous. In their terms, they “cook.”
Take away these ingredients and the players get clumsy, stumble in execution and produce bad results. The music becomes stale and the listener grows disinterested. What’s the consequence? …….Losing the audience.
What does this have to do with manufacturing?
Consider that the U.S. has significantly lost world market share in key industries over fifteen years. Also consider that the complexion of manufacturing is rapidly changing, in the process of a global re-segmentation of markets. With more companies competing worldwide, pressure is on for U.S. manufacturers to give a top performance — designing and building the best quality product in the shortest time possible.
Sour Notes
How do we compare today with that new standard? We have spaghetti factory flows, poor interaction between functional departments, physical walls, classes of workers, poorly integrated information systems, and component factories separated from assembly by states and, sometimes, continents.
As a result, we find ourselves clumsy in moving parts across the factory floor, stale or too slow with introducing new products to respond to market demand, stumbling in execution of production, and severe quality problems. What’s the consequence? Losing business.
Jazz in the Factory
How can we tune ourselves to be top performers in the next decade We must start with the fundamentals, the rudiments. Any organization, just as in a jazz group, is only as good as its weakest player. As individual skills are raised, so is the performance of the organizational unit. We must be ready and skilled in physical movement. Physical dexterity is paramount in the hands of a classical pianist, a jazz saxophonist, and in the production cycle.
We must remove the obstacles that prevent us from manufacturing with high velocity — our set-ups, the excessive material handling, our poor physical flow, and all production interruptions. We must streamline the physical flow, integrate our processes and close the distances between supply, production, assembly, distribution, and our end customer. The emphasis must be on quickly satisfying the service chain of events from the time a customer needs something until he is satisfied.
Being Innovative
We must be adroit in introducing new products and quick in getting them to the market to satisfy demand. We must create a dynamic integrated environment where people can work together in generating and sharing thoughts. Just as a jazz musician is free to choose his notes, in business there must be built-in flexibility to allow members to explore, and be creative.
Fostering innovation, among many other things, requires good organization of information. Our current systems and procedures have been developed at length to control an unwieldy information channel. Our functional organizations are stifling; natural and functional conflicts create internal adverse relationships that prevent the sharing of ideas.
Only when we get past the stifling paper flow, disparate computer systems, and functional organizational walls, will the homogeneity of ideas begin to generate at a fast pace. Linking computers is part of the answer, but it’s also streamlining the information flow, and consolidating the knowledge of the idea producers. We need to organize for ease of sharing information for innovation.
Playing in Harmony
Having the ability to produce spontaneously upon demand requires an organization that is quick and resourceful. It requires short lines of communication, and velocity throughout the work chain. This means not only being able to enact the physical events swiftly, but also completing the business cycles quickly.
A jazz stage band keeps good time by closing physical proximity between players. This is so there is a minimum of delay in hearing the rhythm. In business, close proximity is critical to producing velocity. Each element of a business cycle must be linked with the next for continuity.
Every member must be in tune with the overall needs of the market, and close enough to one another to be spontaneous in helping each other support the common mission — serving the customer. Team play is a basic necessity to produce the results required to be competitive in the next decade.
When a manufacturing company becomes physically dexterous in the factory, organized to be adroit and innovative throughout, and its members work in concert toward a common theme of satisfying the requirements of a dynamic market, it will be a world-class competitor, it will possess enterprise agility, and that’s when it will “cook.”
BIOGRAPHY
Richard G. Ligus is President of Rockford Consulting Group, Ltd., located in Rockford, IL., with over 30 years experience in manufacturing, procurement, transportation and distribution. He specializes in developing and implementing supply chain strategies. Rich is an author and a speaker, and has developed seminars with the American Management Association. He is certified by both the Institute of Management Consultants and the The National Bureau of Certified Consultants.
Rich has a bachelor of science degree in mechanical engineering from the New Jersey Institute of Technology, and a master of business administration degree from Rutgers University. He is a member of CASA/SME, and has been listed in Jane’s Who’s Who in Aviation and Aerospace. He has been a speaker at IMTS, USCTI, APFA, NEPMA, MCAA, Hand Tools Institute, CASA/SME, and others. He has appeared several times on WREX-TV, Mid-Morning Magazine.
