SCANNING YOUR COMPANY FOR SAVINGS

As companies continue to look for ways to cut costs and become leaner it is more important than ever to have information at your finger tips.



With less staff to do the things that need to be done - any search for information or dcuments can take away from important production tasks and may result in costly mistakes or missed delivery dates.


If you can reduce the amount of time you spend answering the same questions for customers each day your productivity and savings would dramatically increase.

Having information at your finger tips is great but sometimes the customers questions require access to the original documents and paper work. At that point you must get up and find the actual job bag and hope the documents have been correctly filed.


With scanners today it can be quick and affordable to store original documents in your computers for future access.

Ideas of documents you may want in your system are


Quote Sent to the Customer


It is great to know the price you sent the customer but if the customer calls with questions you will want to be looking at the same document he is looking at when you answer his questions.



Customer Fax You Based Estimate On


We all get the hand written drawing faxed or emailed to us which we base our estimate on so it would be great if the drawing was electronically attached to the estimate file so it could be referenced easily when questions arise about the quote



Original Customer PO

Questions arise regarding the customers original specifications or requirements that can only be answered by the Purchase Order supplied to you by the customer. Allowing access to the original purchase order on the screen without having to find the physical job bag can save time and avoid mistakes






Signed Packing Slip


Customers always want to know when and how their job was shipped but often they need to know who signed for the job. When your driver returns from his deliveries the signed packing slips can be entered into the system for easy reference later on.



Other Images



As they say a picture is worth a 1000 words and therefore it can be very beneficial to include images of other parts of the Production Process.

Other images and files that you should consider for quick access are die images, finished product images and video documentation of problems and training material.

Access images from your CAD/CAM system or scanning images of the die into the system gives all employees access to the specific information they need to produce the job correctly.

Images of the finished product can help in the production of job.

Video of problems encountered in the past and video of ways to preventing the same mistakes can reduce costs and keep schedules on track.


Making Videos of difficult job setups or less used features of equipment immediately available to employees can save vital production time.

Therefore we can see that technology that allows us to add or scan images into our computers and allows employees to quickly find those images can help companies save time and money.

ADVANTAGES OF ESTIMATING SYSTEMS-ADD UP THE NUMBERS

By Mark Porter
 

A recent topic on the FSEA Help Link led to this months blog topic. Members were questioning the speed of the quoting process in our industry, satisfying customers quoting needs and dealing with competitors that provide pricing that cannibalizes the industry.

In this blog we will deal with the time aspect of quoting.

We will save the concept that estimating and selling are 2 different functions for another issue.
 

Unless you are the guy that just gives prices off the top of his/her head we will all spend time quoting but how much time and how much benefit you provide your customers and yourself from that process can vary tremendously

 

Part of this problem is that 7 or 8 out of every 10 estimates we do we don't get. I am sure nobody would be complaining if every estimate turned into an order. So if we have to do this necessary evil why not minimize the time and maximize the benefit you receive while providing a solid, educated quote that maximizes your chance of getting the job and allows you to analyze your business.

 

The act of doing an estimate involves much more then just getting a number to the customer and should provide more benefit to your company then just getting a 20% job conversion.

 

You can maximize your estimating process by:

 

Having information at your fingertips speeds the estimating process by finding old quotes, past history etc. Software with built in logic and calculations allows you more time to find the best way to run the job rather than crunching numbers, therefore giving you a greater chance to win the job. Information from the estimate saves time when you win the job because the estimate can be turned into an order, packing slip, invoice and hours can be used for scheduling. Analyzing estimates allows you to track valuable quotes and to prioritize your estimating time by customer, job types etc.

 

The following our some suggestions:

 
 

 

Estimate Searching

 

- Finding Previous Estimates is much quicker using an Estimate History feature with many search capabilities
- You can attach the original diagram sent to you that you based the estimate on in the history and you can attach the letter sent to the customer into the estimate history so all documentation is at your finger tips
- dramatically reduces searching and telephone tag time
- Simply pick the customer it brings in contacts, address, telephone, fax information immediately no need to look up
- requoting a previous job - quickly access problem history to see if you need to adjust estimate from last time it ran or if you using job costing quickly access costs last time you ran the job

 

Estimate Options

 

- Estimating Software allows you to estimate the customers Options very quickly because you can be doing them all at once
If customer wants to compare 5,000 / 10,000 / 15,000 you can do this all at the same time or if he wants to compare 5,0000 / 10,000 on 8pt stock and 5,000 / 10,000 on 12 pt stock they call all be done in one estimate with the software doing it automatically


Eliminate Crunching Numbers Aspect

 

- Spend time looking at best ways to run the job to increase chances of getting the job rather than pounding on a calculator
- Build in common material so automatic calculations of things such as foil, laminate, uv, dies, mounting board and glue etc. are done as soon as you put in the specs 

 

Not Just Crunching Numbers but also building in logic

 

- Software doesn't just crunch numbers it allows you to build your knowledge into the system. This not only saves time but also provides more consistency in your pricing which is beneficial to you and your customer
-This can allow you to download some of the simpler quotes to other people and frees time up for the serious and desirable quotes

Estimate Variations

- Finding Previous Estimates is much quicker using the Estimate History feature with many search capabilities
- Doing requotes is much quicker as the estimate is simply retrieved, changes made to existing estimate and resaved with an A,B,C variation
- Also be used for contract pricing
- Also if estimate comes from ABC Printer we know we will see it from DEF Printer and GHI Printer. Use original ABC Printer quote to quickly adjust for other printers doing the same job

Generate Additional Paperwork Automatically

- Automatically converts numbers of Estimate into a professional letter than can be printed/Faxed/Emailed directly to customer stating services and materials you are providing for the price quoted with your company terms and letterhead
- If Estimate becomes a job the software will convert the estimate into the format of the job ticket saving time there as well

Prioritize Customers

- Estimate History allows you to analyze customers as to won/loss ratios don't waste time doing a quote for a customer that uses you as a third price or at least do his quote after the good customers

Follow Up Estimates

- You spend so much time doing estimates make sure you follow up desirable estimates - Estimate History can track estimates of large quantities or high sales values so you don't lose them for a stupid reason like (customer doesn't think you provide a service in house or maybe your quote fell off his desk and your not even being considered)

Analyze Estimates with Estimate History
 

- Get benefit from the time you spend doing estimates by analyzing the data For example

- Won/Loss Ratios by Customer, Types of Work, Estimators ie track the customers and type of work you do best at or find out why your not getting certain work, identify potential new and desirable customers
- 80/20 Rule - 80% of revenue comes from 20% of customers track that their estimate level stays consistent or grows if there is a dip in their activity find out why and solve problem before it is too late

- Measure the number of estimates and type of estimates you do each day We all have a won/loss ratio if we are not doing the numbers and types of quotes that will keep business in the shop we have to adjust
- No recent estimates - that best source of new business is people you have dealt with in the past. Generate a report of any customer that has not done business with you in the last say 3 months

- Track and follow up desirable quotes as mentioned above

I hope this provides some help in saving time quoting and/or maximizing the benefit you can receive for the time you do spend quoting. 

 

 

SOFTWARE SAVES MONEY SMALL INVESTMENTS - BIG RETURNS

Well the summer is over and the fall is always a time to get re-energized.


Companies in the Print Finishing, Trade Binding and Die Making industries must continue to find ways to save money and increase revenue.


I think it is safe to say that software and computers are here to stay and they are an excellent way to achieve these goals.


Companies can get caught up in thinking they have to purchase a full MIS/ERP type system to see any benefits. Although full MIS/ERP systems can bring tremendous savings individual modules and programs can also provide tremendous benefit in reducing costs and/or increasing revenues.


Software such as gotomypc can give you access to your office computer 24/7 from any location you have access to the internet. The cost is approximately $20/month. How many trips do you have to save to the office each month to get a return on your initial investment.


Email blast software can allow you to reach your customers and potential customers very quickly. Software like this is often $20 or $30 per month. It does not have to generate many sales to provide an excellent ROI.


There are many Software APPs that can automate processes you require each day. Many apps are free or very low cost.


Individual Modules from full MIS/ERP systems can provide tremendous savings even if not fully integrated with the rest of the MIS/ERP system.


Customer Profile modules that captures the specific information for how each customer requires their jobs to be produced. Whether those jobs are Finishing, Binding or Die Making. The more informed your employees are the fewer mistakes they will make and that saves money.

How many mistakes need to be avoided to return your investment.



Estimate History Programs can analyze estimates to see what type of work you are getting and losing. Track big desirable jobs to ensure you don't lose them for a stupid reason. 80% of revenue comes rom 20% of customers make sure your good customers aren't starting to look elsewhere.


How many large jobs do you need to win to return your investment



Order Entry programs can track changes to job after the job has been opened and can date/time/employee and reason stamp the change to greatly increase your chances of collection legitimate extra charges.


How many chargeable extras do you need to collect to return your investment.



Machine/Job Spec Recording ensures that you record the machine setup settings for Jobs so that if they are re-run you can quickly perform the job makeready and save time and money

How much time do you spend fumbling and trying to get a machine setup for a job that has been run in the past.


Purchasing modules can track POs, Receipts and Vendor Invoices. This provides and excellent cross check to ensure you only pay for what you have received and what you were quoted. How many wrongly billed items does it take to payback a purchasing system.


How many mistakes in Vendor Invoices do you have to catch to return your investment.



Receiving module for Customers dropping off Printed Goods. Emails notify you and your customer as soon as goods are delivered to your Shipping Dock.

How many hours of lost production time because you were unaware goods were in your plant to you need to save to return your investment



Shipping programs that require a supervisor passwords to release the packing slip if the customer is on credit hold. Shipping Programs that allow you to put the Printers logo on your shipping documents that allow you to meet a tight deadline


How many Jobs do you need to hold to return your investment



Die Mgmt modules allow users who have a large inventory of dies in their plant the ability to find these dies is often a time consuming if not time wasting exercise.


The result is remaking dies that already exist and that wastes thousands and thousands of dollars and cuts into profits.

The condition of the die is monitored to ensure that we are aware of any retooling requirements. Automatic notification goes to the Die Shop foreman when a die needs attention.


We no longer have to lose valuable press time and risk late jobs because a die was not ready to be used at the beginning of a press run or a press......


How many dies do you need to avoid remaking and how much press down time do you need to save to return your investment.


Biometric Time Tracking requires fingerprint entry to record clocking in and out and lunch time. This avoids buddy punching and ensures you are receiving productivity for every hour you pay for. Labor is by far your biggest cost ensure you maximize your return


Data Sharing allows you to account for every minute of every day and every material used in your plant. Accountability leads to greater productivity and less waste. Even a small 5% savings on $2,000,000 dollars of labor and material going through your plant results in a $100,000 savings. You also get productivity tracking, Chargeable and Non Chargeable hours and much more.

How long will it take you to return your investment




BHR modules calculate the true costs of your business. Now more then ever it is important to know your true costs. After all Profit = Sales - Cost. If you don't know your costs how do you know your profits.


Knowing profitability on every job rather than year end can quickly return your investment.

When thinking software you don't have to think a full system to get tremendous benefits. Sometimes small investments bring Big Returns

DIE MGMT - LOCKUP BIG SAVINGS

By Mark Porter

A large number of companies in the Print Finishing, Trade Bindery Die Making, Packaging and Diecutting Industries use steel rule, foil and embossing dies.


Any user of dies can save a tremendous amount of money by simply managing those dies correctly.

Generally users of dies have a large inventory of dies in their plant but the ability to find these dies is often a time consuming if not time wasting exercise.

The result is remaking dies that already exist and that wastes thousands and thousands of dollars and cuts into profits.

By providing systems with extensive searching and sorting provisions we can find if you have a die that will meet the customers needs. These sorts are not just on the die specs but on the finished product specs as well.

Images of the die and the finished product will allow you to quickly identify that you have the correct die.

By using a bar coding system, a location finder and computerized take out and put back process we can ensure dies are located where we expect them.

Once we find dies we can record all specifications about the press run to ensure we can quickly get the die up to speed on the next run.

The condition of the die is monitored to ensure that we are aware of any retooling requirements. Automatic notification goes to the Die Shop foreman when a die needs attention.

We no longer have to lose valuable press time and risk late jobs because a die was not ready to be used at the beginning of a press run or a press run has to be stopped during production to retool a die.

This can save thousands of dollars in lost press time and / or overtime charges to keep jobs on schedule. Not to mention risking your relationship with the customer by delivering the job late.

A good system also tracks the disposal of dies and automatically notifies your customer and your own employees if I die is destroyed or returned to customer.

Die Management can also track the components ie type of rule, punches wood etc including costs that make up that die and track all employees that assemble or maintain the die.

This can be a very easy way for any user of dies to see substantial savings in their operations.

JOB COSTING = VALUABLE BUSINESS INFORMATION

By Mark Porter


In any business knowing your costs is important. After all isn't Profit = Sales - Costs. If you don't know your costs how do you know your profits. Sure at the end of the year you can say I made money or I lost money but if you control your costs and use your cost data to make better business decisions you may not lose any money or be able to say I made more money.

Previous blogs discussed the importance and ways to collect your cost data. Now we can look at what we can do with that data once you have it.

Last months blog discussed the proper Job Closing routines and the type of reports you should generate when a job is complete.

The last in this series of Job Costing Blogs will deal with the value of the data you have collected. Information is a valuable asset and when you are collecting information on every minute spent by every employee and machine, every material used and every purchase made you have a great deal of information that can be analyzed to identify better, more efficient ways to run your company.

The type of reports you can generate with this type of information are:

1. Job Analysis


At the end of each job you get a complete break down of all costs labor, material, purchases and inventory that went against that job. You can compare the actual costs and hours to the estimated costs and hours to see how your plant performed. If there are costs that can be rebilled to the customer you can capture more revenue. If there are differences in the estimate and actual these difference can be analyzed as to whether they were one off differences or systematic changes that need to be addressed


2. Production Analysis


It is important that you ensure that makeready times and run speeds you achieve on the plant floor clearly reflect the data you use in your estimating process.

If you are estimating a piece of equipment at 5000 per hour but infact you are only achieving 4000 per hour on the shop floor you are losing money every time you win a job. Conversly if you are estimating at 4000 per hour and are actually achieving 5000 per hour on the shop floor you are losing jobs you could produce profitably.


3. Employee Analysis


Not all employees are equal and monitoring production results from an employee angle allow you to identify which employees may need more training.


4. Historical Information


Capturing all data about a job provides an excellent foundation for estimating and production in the event the job is re run in the future. This can provide your company with a competitive advantage as to where costs can be saved or allow you the knowledge to requote the job in a manner that will ensure you re coup all costs.


5. Time Analysis



By capturing every minute of time spent by each employee and each machine we can analyze that time to make decisions. For example examine how many hours each employee worked and what percentage of those hours were chargable time. If you have employees that work less then say 65% chargable time you may have to examine their role in the company.

A good job costing system will record the hours spent make-readying, running, cleaning up, repairing, maintaining or having no work for a machine. A machine with increasing repair and maintenance time may need to be replaced. A machine with large amounts of down time may be an asset that can be sold.


Job Costing not only allows you to analyze how a certain job ran at a specific time but also allows you to analyze all aspects of your business in a very historical way.

OPEN DOORS TO PROFIT WITH PROPER JOB CLOSING ROUTINES

After successfully implementing the Dienamic Estimating, MIS and Online Inquiry Software System in over 100 Finishers/Binderies/Diemakers Dienamic can bring your company results on how to

Increase Sales

Increase Quality

Increase Profitability

Increase Customer Loyalty

By Mark Porter


In any business knowing your costs is important. After all isn't Profit = Sales - Costs. If you don't know your costs how do you know your profits. Sure at the end of the year you can say I made money or I lost money but if you control your costs and use your cost data to make better business decisions you may not lose any money or be able to say I made more money.

In a previous blog we discussed the importance and ways to collect your cost data. Now we can look at what we can do with that data once you have it.

Lets start with your Job Closing routine. When you complete a job do you simply pass the job to invoicing and have them bill the customer based on your estimated amount. If so you are probably missing valuable information.

Closing a job in an automated system should generate several useful reports and functions.


1. Close the Job to Prevent Additional Charges


When you decide to make the invoice the last thing you want is to have employees still incurring costs against the job. Trying to get a customer to pay additional charges after you sent them the original invoice is at the very least embarassing.


Part of your closing procedure should prevent additional time, materials and purchases being placed against a job without a supervisor OK once the billing process starts.


2. Full Listing of all Costs Incurred


The Job Closing process should generate a report that lists all labor hours and cost, material costs and purchases that went into producing that job.  Ensure you are aware of all money that went into the job. Your closing report should offer you the option to view the data by dept, cost center, operation or transaction level.

Generally these reports are viewed at a cost center level. This means we would see a Total Hours and Total Dollars for each machine used on the job. If we see a cost center that looks unusually high or low we can drill down to an operation level to see if it was the makeready or run. If we identify the source we can drill down to a transaction level to see which employees worked on this job.


3. Actual vs Estimate Report


This report provides a comparison of the estimated hours and costs for all labor, material and purchases for the specific job to the actual costs.

This is a valuable report that can quickly identify actual costs that are not in line with your estimated costs. This could prove to be a one time exception that nothing could prevent or maybe it is a process that needs to be evaluated. If you are estimating a machine to run at 5000 / hr and it is actually running at 4000/hr you are losing money every time you win a quote. Conversely if it is running at 5000/hr and you are quoting 4000/hr you are losing jobs you should be winning.


4. Changes Report


When a job is complete you should be able to get a listing of all changes made to the job from the time you agreed to produce the job to the final product that was shipped to the customer. It is important to track these changes as you will need them to explain time and cost variances and also to help correct legitimate extra charges. Collecting extra charges can be a great source of additional revenue and by having a complete backup of information about the extra charge i.e. who, what where, why and when a change was made allows you to collect that extra charge without damaging the relationship with that customer.


5. Problem History


Provide your employees with a problem history system they can use to enter problems with jobs as they happen. When closing a job a list of its problems can be viewed. These problems may help explain some of the variations and issues on the job. This saves the time of office staff to track down employees and ask what happened 2-3 days ago.


Problem history is also very valuable when quoting or running this job in the future.


By following good closing procedures you can ensure that all costs are captured, all legitimate extra charges are recovered, all production variances are accounted for and all processes are running as efficiently as possible.


A good Job Closing Routine Opens Doors to Profits.

BIOMETRICS - NEW TECHNOLOGY TO BETTER MANAGE YOUR BIGGEST COST - LABOR

 

After successfully implementing the Dienamic Estimating, MIS and Online Inquiry Software System in over 100 Finishers/Binderies/Diemakers Dienamic can bring your company results on how to

Increase Sales

Increase Quality

Increase Profitability

Increase Customer Loyalty

 

By Mark Porter

 

Last months newsletter discussed achieving accountability on the shop floor to ensure you are aware of all costs you incur in the plant Shop Floor Data Collection ensures that people are accountable for every minute they are in the plant and every material that they use.

 

After all Profit = Sales - Costs

 

If you don't know your costs how do you know your profits

 

Technology can also allow you to better manage who is on the shop floor. To ensure a company is getting the maximum productivity out of their labor they have to ensure that employees are actually on the floor.

 

With simple punch card systems it is too easy for friends to clock each other in and out when in fact one person may not be on the premises.

 

This results not only in the wasted dollars of say paying someone for 2 hours @ $20 per hour but also results in the lost productivity on the press for 2 hours  that you are selling at $125 per hour.

 

Managing this type of activity gets much tougher once you start running 2nd and 3rd shifts.

 

Biometrics use an employee's fingerprint to activate the time card system for clocking in, starting lunch, finishing lunch and clocking out.

 

Requiring a person's finger to clock in ensures that you are paying employees for actually doing work for you and you are running at the efficiencies that you expect and base your cost structure on.

 

The Biometric Time clock can be used in conjunction with the data sharing as an employee cannot record time against a job if he has not clocked in for the day or as a standalone payroll system.

 

As a standalone payroll system it will stop buddy punching but it will also provide a log of everyone that punched in immediately after a shifts starts so you are immediately aware of staff shortages for the day and it can provide a direct link to payroll services such as Paychex Payroll Services to eliminate rekeying and calculating payroll.

 

Labor is by far the biggest cost our customers incur. By managing the employees attendance through Biometrics and demanding accountability of their time and materials while they are in the plant you can take control of your biggest cost. Even small percentage savings on labor can be substantial

 

5% on $2,000,000 is $100,000 savings

 

ACCOUNTABILITY ON SHOP FLOOR LEADS TO PROFITABILITY IN OFFICE

After successfully implementing the Dienamic Estimating, MIS and Online Inquiry Software System in over 100 Finishers/Binderies/Diemakers Dienamic can bring your company results on how to

Increase Sales

Increase Quality

Increase Profitability

Increase Customer Loyalty

  By Mark Porter
In any business knowing your costs is important. After all isn't Profit = Sales - Costs. If you don't know your costs how do you know your profits. Sure at the end of the year you can say I made money or I lost money but if you control your costs and use your cost data to make better business decisions you may not lose money and you may be able to say I made MORE money.


There are many benefits to a Job Costing System.

1. Capturing all costs incurred by a job for billing purposes
2. Analysis of Jobs to identify process or employee problems
3. Compare Estimate to Actual Values to ensure they are in sync
4. Production & Employee Analysis to ensure standards are met
5. Work In Process
6. Analyze time spent by all Employees and Machines
7. Payroll Benefits * New Finger Print Scanning and integration to Paychex

Last and certainly not least ACCOUNTABILITY - We will look at this aspect in our Blog


I don't think it matters if you are the person sweeping the plant floor or the president of the company - if you have to account for every minute of your day and every material you use you will become more productive and less wasteful.


This can add up to tremendous savings. Lets say we get even a modest 5% increase in productivity and 5% decrease in waste. Extend that to the money that flows through your plant each year. On $2,000,000 dollars that is a $100,000 savings.


There are several methods to record time and materials in the plant and each method has different levels of accountability.


1. Employees simply writing their time on the back of the Job Bag provides little value either in costing the job or in accountability. The employee can simply place the time and materials he thinks you want to see. You have no way of knowng if the time he wrote down reflects the true time spent.


2. Employees manually writing out time sheets is a step closer because at least the employee has to account for his time within the structure of his day. But again if he knows he took way too long on a process he can factor it in over the course of a day.


3. Real Time Tracking is the most accurate and therefore profitable method. The employee simply enters that he is starting or finishing a process. the system keeps track of start and stop times in real time. The employee knows he can be held accountable for every minute of the day.

Real time tracking means that you can see the location of a job, the activity of a machine or the process an employee is doing at any time from any pc. Not only is the employee accountable for his time - it can be viewed at any time. 

And accurate time collection leads to other benefits such as accurate analysis of employee and machine time. Job Costing provides many benefits, which we will look at in future articles, but accountability is a huge benefit that leads to greater profits which is good for you and the employees.

PURCHASING ANOTHER PIECE OF THE PROFIT PUZZLE

After successfully implementating the Dienamic Estimating, MIS and Online Inquiry Software System in over 100 Finishers/Binderies/Diemakers Dienamic can bring your company results on how to

Increase Sales

Increase Quality

Increase Profitability

Increase Customer Loyality

By Mark Porter

All companies have to purchase both materials and services in their day to day activities. The levels of those purchases can vary from industry to industry and from company to company. Certainly the industries of Print Finishing, Trade Binding and Diemaking are more labor based then material based but purchases must still be made.



These days anytime money leaves your company it is vital that you have accountability for that money and confirmation that you received the value you expected for the funds.


Purchase Orders should be generated for all purchases. This includes items for specific jobs, materials for inventory, any outside labor services and general office purchases such as supplies.


Issuing purchase orders whether written or verbal is the same as writing a check from your company to the vendor . Whether your company makes many purchases or only a few each one represents money leaving your company that should be controled.


A Purchasing System should record every purchase order issued. This provides accountability of who is issuing purchase orders and where they are being sent to. By making people accountable for the purchase orders they issue you will ensure they are more careful with the purchases they make.


When goods or services are received they should be matched up to the original purchase order to ensure that you have received the full order, more than was ordered or if items are still to be received.


When the Vendor Invoice is received it should be matched up to the original purchase order to check that the prices on the invoice match the prices that were approved on the purchase order.


The Vendor Invoice should also be matched up to the receipt of goods to ensure that the vendor is not billing you for more goods than you actually received.

Our industries are so job based it is often a good idea to take a step back and view purchases by vendor and employees issuing POs.


By ensuring your company follows these procedures you can tighten your financial control of another aspect of your business to ensure you are maximizing the success of your company.

TURNING PROBLEMS INTO POSITIVES

After successfully implementating the Dienamic Estimating, MIS and Online Inquiry Software System in over 100 Finishers/Binderies/Diemakers Dienamic can bring your company results on how to
 

Increase Sales

Increase Quality

Increase Profitability

Increase Customer Loyality
 

 

 

By Mark Porter

As the old saying goes "When life gives you lemons make lemonade". This can be applied to the daily problems you encounter in your business.

Software can help documenting and recording problems provides several benefits to your company and you can actually turn problems around to strengthen relationships with customers, vendors, employees and improve operating procedures.

Providing employees easy entry of information such as Job Number, Customer, Vendor, Employee, Department, Problem Type (Paper, MR, etc), Quantity effected, Problem Description, Problem Solution etc allows you to sort and analyze problems which can provide many benefits such as:

Don't Make The Same Mistake Twice
Becomes a Database of Problems and Solutions
Improve Relationships With Customer/Vendors/Employees
Documenting Problems Minimizes Damage

1. Don't Make The Same Mistake TwiceAnother old saying goes "Your not stupid for making a mistake just for making the same mistake twice."

By recording problems against jobs you can be immediately notified when re quoting or rerunning that job of the issues incurred last time. At the estimate stage it allows you to re quote the job based on the previous information or at Order Entry you have the option to not proceed with the job if the customer is not willing to incur the extra costs this time around.

2. Becomes a Database of Problems and SolutionsRecording problems and solutions builds a knowledge base that can be accessed by employees in the future. By entering the problems with data such as department, problem type employee etc allows us to shorten the solution time to similar problems in the future.

Combine this with the ability to add video and images of the problems/solutions to the database and you can learn from your previous mistakes.3. Improve Relationships With Customer/Vendors/EmployeesGenerate a list of problems you have with good customers each quarter and then discuss those issues and offer solutions with the customer. Continually refining the working relationship between your company and customers allows you to produce higher quality, better priced and better serviced products for them. This strengthens the bond with that customer ensuring it takes a bigger mistake or price difference for them to take their business elsewhere.

The same logic applies to vendors and employees. By discussing issues with people you strengthen the working relationships to the betterment of your company.

Trends can be seen with employees and certain operations. Say an employee is always having problems with MR a certain product. Additional training can be provided. Trends with Vendor materials continually causing problems can be identified and rectified.

4. Documenting Problems Minimizes DamageIf nothing else documenting problems can save money and relationships in the event of disputes. The more documentation you have the more you reinforce your position to the other party in a constructive and articulate way. This can reduce or eliminate your liability and open the possibility to future business.

So next time you make mistake make your company stronger for the experience

CASH IS KING

Controlling your cash is vital in todays economy but you are probably also under staffed and over worked - a perfect combination that can lead to missing items that can greatly effect your cash flow.

Therefore it is vital that you have the check and balances built into your operations that will help avoid bad customers, missed charges, paying too much to vendors and maintaining cash flow.

We are not going to look at this topic from the accounting side. We will assume that everyone has an accounting system such as Quickbooks or Peachtree etc and is watching their aging process (the accounts not themselves). We will deal with the management side in this Blog.

 

Avoid Bad Customers

Chargeable Changes

Start Your Aging As Soon As Possible

Don't Miss Any Jobs (Shipped Not Invoiced)

Don't Over Pay Suppliers

Other Production Tips

 

Avoid Bad Customers: Debt from one Bad Customer can wipe out profit from a lot of Good Jobs so it is vital that you stay on top of COD and delinquent customers. These days this information can be continually changing and it is important that everyone is aware of a customer's status. There is nothing worse then shipping a job to a customer on COD before getting the money or calling a customer to tell them you are holding their job back only to find out they sent you a check earlier.

Allowing Management to make credit decisions on customers and to convey that decision immediately to other staff is very important. Management can simply flag a customer as COD or On Hold and immediately order entry people cannot open orders without a security password and shipping people cannot create packing slips without a security password.


Chargeable Changes: Profit margins on jobs are so thin these days that any extra work can turn a job from money maker to money loser. It is vital that you track your chargeable changes and collect them from your customer. Implement a system that will document all changes made to the order from the time you agree to do the job until you ship that job to the customer. The changes should be Date / Time / Employee and Reason stamped. Change Orders should be sent and immediately email notification to the customers of the changes. These changes should be immediately reflected on the invoice but allow for changes at that time.

If you keep record of every change and document the reasons for the changes you will collect your legitimate extra fees.

Start Your Aging As Soon As Possible: We all know that customers are going to take their time paying you whether that is 30, 60, 90, 120 days so the sooner you can start the clock the better. When you generate your physical invoice automatically email a pdf copy of it to your customer at the same time. This avoids any delay in mailing invoices and allows you to collect your money days earlier.

Customers will want your invoice asap so that they can bill their customers and keep their cash flow going. You may not get your money any sooner but you will become a more desirable vendor for them.

Don't Miss Any Jobs: Reduced staffs and hurried work schedules can lead to people doing things they forget about. Maybe a job is shipped and then your plant manager pulls the Job Bag to write something on it and then forgets to but it back in the billing file. Or maybe the job bag fell behind the shippers desk. The end result is a shipped job that isn't billed at all or billed at a much later date when it is found which is uncomfortable and embarrassing.

Run reports each Friday that provide a list of jobs shipped but not invoiced. Don't let any hard earned money slip through your fingers.

Don't Over Pay Purchases: Everyone makes mistakes including suppliers but you shouldn't have to pay for their mistakes. By issuing POs, recording receipts and entering Vendor Invoices you can be instantly flagged when the invoice price varies from the PO and the Quantity billed exceeds the Quantity received. You work hard for your money don't give it away to suppliers.