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(c) The Business Journals
Professionally, I have seldom, in 30+ years, ventured outside of print and packaging, with the exception of a brief excursion into heavy engineering (and that was to close the business) but within our industry, from the smallest SME to the largest corporations, I have constantly been amazed at how little effort is put into sustaining a business for the future.
The topics I discuss in this and forthcoming articles, propose how a business can improve operationally to sustain long term. Areas that may have seemed of lesser significance a year ago have now gained prominence, due to the challenges that a COVID influenced market has had on our industry.
PEOPLE ARE OUR GREATEST RESOURCE
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(c) Viral Solutions
An oft-quoted epithet but it’s a truism. One can’t run presses, or any other aspect of a business, without effective people, therefore, as one would with any other resource, a print business must have the appropriate number of the right (trained) people in the right places, doing the right jobs in order to provide value and maximise profitability.
As a business owner/leader, one should be using proven management techniques and principles to ensure that employees are:
1. Informed;
2. Listened to;
3. Supplied with the necessary tools for their respective jobs (including tools for administrative staff); and
4. Supported.
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(c) HR Daily Advisor – BLR
None of the above takes any more time and effort than not doing any of the above (because it’s your role to do these) but not doing them will be a path to failure. The risks of not following the basic needs, as listed, will result, at best, in the likelihood of not gaining any new business and at worst, losing the current client base. Now is a good time to look at current management practices throughout the organisation (and that includes middle, supervisory and shift leaders) and decide whether they are effective in supporting what the business needs – efficiency and value.
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(c) The Small Business
Think of a management structure as a supply chain, where each link in that chain needs to be equally strong or the chain is weakened; in this analogy, information, materials, production outputs, delivery to the customer, and, ultimately customer service are the links. Within that chain, the links are bonded by the various levels of management throughout the chain, right to the top.
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(c) m360.sim.edu.sg
Simple but effective tools can be employed to assess the effectiveness of employees and their managers. For example: as a senior manager, one should take time to have discussions with those on the shop floor, it doesn’t need to be an in-depth, philosophical discourse but closed questions, such as, “do you have what you need to do your job?” can provide enlightening information to gauge the effectiveness of the workforce and the operations. Of course, one shouldn’t allow this to take an inordinate amount of time, 2 hours of walking and asking is sufficient to feedback to your management team, even in a large site of 200+ employees (this, by the way, could evolve into a regular Gemba Walk to be developed for the future).
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(c) GreyCampus
This is also a very good opportunity to understand the level of competence of your management/supervisory teams. One of the key principles of management is to inform; by asking questions one should be able to understand how well a particular supervisor or manager is informing and supporting, a well-informed workforce is generally a safe and motivated one. If the responses to the questions are not as they should be, or the responses elicit no answers, then this is a key identifier that training in the ranks of the management is required (under no circumstances should one “step in” to overcome deficiencies in management teams).
And, as we look at the business environment today, now is the time to act upon any potential deficiencies with one’s business structure. Seek out training providers that will create opportunity for the management team, explore the possibility of how to amortize current and future training costs by creating a local cooperative, bringing together local businesses that have also identified management training needs, thereby reducing the cost to one’s business. As much as any business leader would want their operational staff to be qualified – as a printer, a guillotine operator or a folder operator etc, it is vitally important that the management team are also suitably competent and qualified.
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(c) VectorStock
As an aside, early in my management career, I undertook management training where my fellow students came from a broad brush of industries, from finance and banking through to heavy industry (and print) and, in my opinion, it gave me a more rounded learning experience, as opinions often differed markedly from my own. One thing I am certain of is that without the training (and subsequent study), I would have been as useful as a manager as a carpenter would be on a Heidelberg Speedmaster!
IN CONCLUSION
There is no reason why any business should not aspire to be as good as the best in the world. I’ve run printing plants that had infrastructure built in the times of Communist Poland, so I know that appearances of a site are superficial; yet I had a world class, highly efficient business being run by well informed and supported people.
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(c) Freepik.com
It is the responsibility of the top management to ensure that a business operates consistently, at the highest level and with a sustainable future. Now is an opportune time to understand and fully utilise all of the potential within one’s greatest resource to enable this to happen.
© Andrew Malson is a highly experienced, committed and passionate Operations Executive/Director/Manager with a demonstrable reputation for creating the change required to deliver significant improvements in business performance through quality, service and productivity. He has invaluable strength in establishing and ensuring sustainable success of single, multi, and regional manufacturing sites by creating right and enduring cultural change through involvement and development of people. In the 30 years since beginning in the industry, Andrew has been responsible for the design and implementation of systems covering quality, people development, environmental standards and operational excellence. He brought his wealth of experience and invaluable knowledge to bear at WHERE To Print magazine in West Africa in its quest to positively influence and improve print purchase decisions with special focus on Lean Manufacturing Implementation; Organisational Effectiveness; and Sustainable Business Growth. Andrew welcomes your connection via wheretoprint@yahoo.com or directly vide andrewcmalson@gmail.com
