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Improving Quality, Efficiency
& Profitability
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“Quality, quality, quality: never waver from it, even when you don't
see how you can afford to keep it up. When you compromise,
you become a commodity and then you die.”
Gary Hirschberg
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 Happy New Year!
Like all businesses, I’m sure you have been looking back on 2007 to determine how you compared against the projections you had for the year – your bonus probably depends upon it! How efficient was your business? How did inefficiencies impact your bottom line?
Once again the articles in this edition really speak to some consistent themes: keep it simple, keep it efficient, take excellent care of your customers, and don’t’ be afraid to try a new way to improve your company. This year may you live up to these themes. Give us a call and we can help you achieve these goals.
Have a wonderful – and safe – winter!
Sal Ganino
Manufacturing ETC
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 Managing for Quality |
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Customer Service or the Lack of It
TI am getting old, well let’s face it, I am old. They say that at a certain point in your life, you can’t remember what you had for breakfast, but you can remember things that happened when you were thirteen years old. Well I can remember when customer service was something that must businesses prided themselves as providing.
Today, customer service is an anomaly, my pet peeve is going into a department store, you know; K-Mart, Target, et al and to stand in a long line of customers waiting to check out. I look around and see eight to twelve cash registers not being attended, front end managers walking around not noticing the long lines, and cashiers that can’t make change without the aid of the computerized cash register. Click here to read the complete article.
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Lean Manufacturing
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Failure to Change Is A Vice
I came across the following article not too long ago and though I would share it with you.
While watching a discussion on television, I heard Okuda Hiroshi, Chairman of Toyota Motor Corp. say, “Failure to change is a vice." Further, he said, in essence that it was the duty of every Toyota employee to embrace change wholeheartedly or if they couldn't really change that they would not be an obstacle for others that want change to take place.
From my past experiences, I found it almost universal; people resisting change and feeling that their job is to protect the company from changing. They go to seminars, read books and watch videos, seeing new things happening but inevitably say to themselves, "Nice but not for me." They feel that their job is to protect the status quo. "I have enough to handle right now!" It is what they think and practice. Click here to read the complete article.
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Lean Manufacturing
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Keeping Things Simple
One day just before Christmas, I was watching the local late night news; they were doing an article on SKY BUS. SKY BUS apparently not only one of the latest, it is in direct competition with all the “ECONOMICAL” airlines; Southwest et al. They’re working on the concept of keeping it ‘CHEAP, SIMPLE, BUT ON TIME’.
Their CEO: Bill Diffenderffer put it this way; “When I was first contacted about serving as the CEO of Skybus Airlines in early 2005 I wondered why anyone would want to start up an airline, when airlines everywhere were losing boatloads of money and the price of jet fuel was going sky high. However when I learned that very highly regarded business leaders with national reputations were behind it, I decided to take a closer look. That was one of the best decisions I ever made in my life. Skybus Airlines is going to become an amazing business success story. Click here to read the complete article.
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For more information or to schedule training
call (518) 377-6107
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