By Mark Porter
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.
Thursday, September 29, 2011
Tuesday, September 13, 2011
SOFTWARE SAVES MONEY: SMALL INVESTMENTS - BIG RETURNS
By Mark Porter
Well the summer is over and the fall is always a time to get re-energized. With the current news we are hearing it looks like there are more challanges waiting for businesses in the coming months.
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 invidiual 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.
Customer Profile $995 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.
Estimate History $995. 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 openned and can dat/time/employee and reason stamp the change to greatly increse your chances of collection legitimate extra charges.
Order Entry $1995. How many chargable extras do you need to collect to return your investment.
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.
Purchasing $995. 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.
Receiving Module $995. 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
Shipping $995. 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......
Die Mgmt $995. How many dies do you need to avoid remaking and how much press down time do you need to save to return your investment.
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, Chargable and Non Chargable hours and much more.
Data Sharing starts at $4995. How long will it tak 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.
BHR $1295. 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
Well the summer is over and the fall is always a time to get re-energized. With the current news we are hearing it looks like there are more challanges waiting for businesses in the coming months.
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 invidiual 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.
Customer Profile $995 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.
Estimate History $995. 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 openned and can dat/time/employee and reason stamp the change to greatly increse your chances of collection legitimate extra charges.
Order Entry $1995. How many chargable extras do you need to collect to return your investment.
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.
Purchasing $995. 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.
Receiving Module $995. 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
Shipping $995. 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......
Die Mgmt $995. How many dies do you need to avoid remaking and how much press down time do you need to save to return your investment.
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, Chargable and Non Chargable hours and much more.
Data Sharing starts at $4995. How long will it tak 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.
BHR $1295. 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
Thursday, July 28, 2011
DIE MGMT - LOCK UP 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.
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.
Wednesday, June 29, 2011
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.
March's blog 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.
May's 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. 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.
2. 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.
3. 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.
4. 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.
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.
March's blog 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.
May's 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. 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.
2. 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.
3. 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.
4. 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.
Tuesday, May 31, 2011
PROPER JOB CLOSING ROUTINES OPEN DOORS TO PROFIT
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.
March's blog 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.
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.
March's blog 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.
Tuesday, April 26, 2011
TRADE SHOWS AND CONFERENCES - KEEPING UP WITH TECHNOLOGY
By Mark Porter
This issue will take a break from Information Technology and Management Concepts and will promote a busy month for Trade Shows and Conferences directed at our specific industries of Print Finishing, Binderies, Diemakers and Diecutters.
Trade Shows are always a great way to get out and see what is new in equipment and technology as well as attend seminars and network with fellow industry members.
IADD/FSEA ODYSSEY
In May we have the IADD/FSEA Odyssey show in Nashville, TN from May 4th-6th. This is a trade show format with plenty of industry specific vendors demonstrating the latest products. Plus there are seminars and a Tech Shop portion of the show to see live demonstrations of equipment.
Dienamic will be participating at this event in booth 801 and would look forward to meeting members of the Print Finishing, Diemaking and Diecutting Industries to discuss any of the topics we have covered in our blog over the last couple of years or demonstrate any of our software products such as our Industry specific Estimating System, MIS/ERP System, On-line Customer Inquiry System or our Software Tools such as Die Mgmt and BHR programs or our new Foil Calc App.
If you would like more information on this event please contact Dienamic or the IADD or FSEA
BIA - Mid Management Conference
At the end of May the Binding Industries Association (BIA) will be hosting its Mid Management Conference in Orlando FL from May 23rd to 25th. The format of this event is a conference with different speakers covering a wide range of Industry Specific topics. The BIA also provides table top displays for vendors to display and provide information on new products and services available to the Bindery Industry in a much more casual atmosphere.
Dienamic will have a table top display and would be happy to discuss any of the topics covered in our blog or our industry specific software solutions. For more information contact Dienamic or BIA
Which ever show you attend Dienamic would be happy to demonstrate the importance of the concepts we have discussed such as
Estimating and Selling are different functions
Profit = Sales - Cost if you don't know your costs how do you know your profits
Accountability on the Shop Floor can result in Big Profits
Customer profiling leads to Company profits
Doing more with Less
Focus leads to Greater Profitability
Profitability begins with quote
80% of Revenue comes from 20% of customers - lock those good customers in
This issue will take a break from Information Technology and Management Concepts and will promote a busy month for Trade Shows and Conferences directed at our specific industries of Print Finishing, Binderies, Diemakers and Diecutters.
Trade Shows are always a great way to get out and see what is new in equipment and technology as well as attend seminars and network with fellow industry members.
IADD/FSEA ODYSSEY
In May we have the IADD/FSEA Odyssey show in Nashville, TN from May 4th-6th. This is a trade show format with plenty of industry specific vendors demonstrating the latest products. Plus there are seminars and a Tech Shop portion of the show to see live demonstrations of equipment.
Dienamic will be participating at this event in booth 801 and would look forward to meeting members of the Print Finishing, Diemaking and Diecutting Industries to discuss any of the topics we have covered in our blog over the last couple of years or demonstrate any of our software products such as our Industry specific Estimating System, MIS/ERP System, On-line Customer Inquiry System or our Software Tools such as Die Mgmt and BHR programs or our new Foil Calc App.
If you would like more information on this event please contact Dienamic or the IADD or FSEA
BIA - Mid Management Conference
At the end of May the Binding Industries Association (BIA) will be hosting its Mid Management Conference in Orlando FL from May 23rd to 25th. The format of this event is a conference with different speakers covering a wide range of Industry Specific topics. The BIA also provides table top displays for vendors to display and provide information on new products and services available to the Bindery Industry in a much more casual atmosphere.
Dienamic will have a table top display and would be happy to discuss any of the topics covered in our blog or our industry specific software solutions. For more information contact Dienamic or BIA
Which ever show you attend Dienamic would be happy to demonstrate the importance of the concepts we have discussed such as
Estimating and Selling are different functions
Profit = Sales - Cost if you don't know your costs how do you know your profits
Accountability on the Shop Floor can result in Big Profits
Customer profiling leads to Company profits
Doing more with Less
Focus leads to Greater Profitability
Profitability begins with quote
80% of Revenue comes from 20% of customers - lock those good customers in
Thursday, March 31, 2011
ACCOUNTABILITY ON SHOP FLOOR LEADS TO PROFITABILITY IN THE OFFICE
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
Last and certainly not least ACCOUNTABILITY
I don't think it matters if you are the person sweeping the plant floors 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 good for you and the employees.
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
Last and certainly not least ACCOUNTABILITY
I don't think it matters if you are the person sweeping the plant floors 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 good for you and the employees.
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