Lean Romtelecom
Yorgos Ioannidis – CEO Romtelecom
Anca Georgescu – Director HR, Romtelecom
Bucharest, September 11, 2008
Duration : 0:4:42
Constant, Never-ending Improvement Builds Net Worth
Background
Gordon manufactured two styles of fiberglass boats: one for water-skiing and pleasure, the other designed specifically for bass fishing. Both boats were manufactured on the same production line, switching between the two models as orders and demand shifted.
Problem
Business was booming. Obviously, that’s the goal of any business so long as you can fill orders promptly. They were selling boats as fast as they could make them, about two boats per eight-hour shift. So they added a second shift running from 4:00 pm until midnight. At first, this second shift was unable to finish two boats per shift but caught up after several weeks. Nonetheless, production was still not meeting demand.
The Solution
Eventually, the night shift needed a new foreman. Gordon hired a rough-hewn character who came with high praise from his last boss. After getting acquainted with the process, he asked his night crew to think of ways to do the job easier – not faster. The men volunteered several ideas for doing the job with less hassle.
About this time I was retained to assist with the production lag time. Using The Profit Process, we met with the two shift foremen and explained the need for a simple means of communicating productivity to the workers. The next day, the new night foreman spread a large length of butcher paper across the wall in the factory. When the night shift came on duty he asked the day foreman how many boats they had made that day. The answer was “2.” Without a word to his night crew, he scrawled a large ‘2′ on the butcher paper. That night his shift completed two boats and he marked that ‘2′ opposite the first one. The following day he again asked the day-shift foreman for their production total and noted another ‘2.’
After several days of logging in 2’s for each shift, the night shift workers announced that thought they could complete three boats that evening. They did just that and a large ‘3′ was marked on the wall. The day shift then logged another two-boat day, but the night shift topped it with another three-boat evening. But after a week of being outdone by the new shift, the day workers began producing three-boats as well.
The men developed more ideas for improving both the manufacturing process and the products. Gradually, over just a couple years, production grew from two boats per shift to six boats – all duly noted on the wall chart!
The Result
Due to the continual increase in both product quality and productivity, the business thrived. Eventually the business built a larger factory and added another line of boats. Finally, the business was sold to a national firm to fill in a geographic gap in its coverage and Gordon retired. In two short years, increasing his productivity had increased the valuation of his small business beyond his expectations.
Commentary
Having a visible and simple metric for product and process improvement is a powerful stimulus. Given an opportunity, line workers and foremen working together know best how to improve the product, the process and Leadership Development of Small Business.Constant and never-ending improvement is the key to prosperity in all businesses and the ultimate key to customer satisfaction and financial rewards.
Don Morrison
http://www.articlesbase.com/management-articles/constant-neverending-improvement-builds-net-worth-715763.html
FöretagspresentationB2B portal: A Business Platform to Ultimate Productivity Improvement
B2B portal: A Business Platform to Ultimate Productivity
Improvement
If somebody tells you that your present corporate website can
be converted to a B2B portal which will help you significantly
improve your company’s productivity in both of the two primary
factors: Revenue Growth and Cost Saving, and that the portal can
be launched in a matter of months with a very reasonable
investment, what will be your reaction? Read on to learn how
corporations all over the world are missing an opportunity,
which can revolutionize the way they manage their businesses.
What is a B2B portal?
A portal is defined as an access point to World Wide Web. A
portal is a combination of web pages, features and services
which become a primary destination for users. The word was first
used to describe the sites of popular Internet access providers
or search engines such as AOL, MSN and Yahoo! At a later stage,
the word “portal” evolved into something bigger covering
business websites, where a corporate portal or enterprise
information portal acts as a base for employees, customers,
suppliers and other associates of a company to access corporate
information and web services. A B2B portal is a distinct kind of
website with features to conduct electronic business and manage
significant parts of corporate business processes.
Benefits of having a B2B portal
Today, B2B portals are not just a fancy idea! They are an
absolute necessity for all enterprises of any type and size. The
advantages of having a quality B2B portal are massive.
Implementation of a true high quality B2B portal could have
immediate impact on company productivity.
Revenue Growth
Revenue Increase from Existing Clients Existing clients get
faster and easier access to product information, quicker
response to their requests, get better customer support and are
able to buy products online. Revenue Increase from Value Added
Services Once a B2B portal is set as the primary sales channel,
spared resources can be used to create more value added services
for clients. Some of the services that the portal may offer also
could be utilized to generate more value.
Cost Savings
Order Processing Cost If the B2B portal integrates supply chain
management solution, it will reduce the cost of processing
orders drastically. Studies show that similar solution can
reduce cost of processing a purchase order from US$ 70 down in
average to US$ 6 only. Sales and support costs Automated sales
and customer support features integrated in the solution is
capable of reducing overhead costs up to 30 percent.
Inventory keeping costs Clearer visibility and forecasting
ability thanks to various features of the B2B portal may help
companies considerably reduce inventory keeping costs.
Other key benefits include: Low customer acquisition cost
Effective portal branding on the Internet will help to attract
customers from new sources. The cost of acquiring customers
through online channels is always cheaper than other traditional
methods.
Improve customer service Ability to have constant interaction
with customers through the B2B portal helps companies serve
customers better. The B2B portal solution allows tracking the
whole ordering process from payment to delivery and brings
greater efficiency in customer service. or directly buy products
using the shopping cart Reduce sourcing time cycle The customers
can select products from the integrated marketplace of the B2B
portal and either sends purchase orders or directly buy products
using the shopping cart. Buyers handle all their procurement
related correspondence from a consolidated working page, which
helps them react instantly and reduce time in document
processing.
Community participation Company buyers and sellers can create
communities surrounding the B2B portal’s discussion board. This
helps getting valuable feedbacks on time, building new
partnerships using the networking ability of a community, and
disseminating important information to members easily.
Real time access to current product information Current
information of a product is vital for an accurate buying
decision. Updating product content and other information using
customized forms as it is necessary, the company can help buyers
and other associates to take critical decision promptly.
Control rogue spending Consolidated and automated procurement
and approval method stops maverick buying in a company.
Main components of a B2B portal
Supply Chain Management Supply chain management solutions can
deliver great values to company’s existing systems.
Implementation of these solutions will help achieving incredibly
high return on investment and will have tremendous impact on
company’s business, which include: better productivity, faster
order processing, greater visibility, the elimination of
maverick or unplanned purchasing, etc.
Marketplace This is the venue where the enterprises can post
their products for sale. A sophisticated shopping cart will be
integrated into the electronic marketplace in order to automate
the buying process.
Auction Electronic auction system can use both English and Dutch
auction methods. For convenience the auction component can be
integrated into the electronic marketplace. Online auction helps
liquidate surplus goods easily.
Reverse Auction This solution allows the company to automate
electronic procurement, where suppliers compete for business
real time online.
Storefront for Participants Each associate of the B2B portal
will get a Storefront that may reflect profile of the company,
its products, services or other information.
Forum A Forum or a Discussion Board is an organized, on-line
interactive message board where participants conduct discussion
on a set of topics by posting questions, comments and responses.
Internal Messaging System Elaborate Messaging System allows a
participant of the B2B portal send and receive messages from
other participants and the company. Since the messages do not
leave a secured server, participants would not be worried about
sending sensitive information over the Internet.
Classified Catalog based bulletin board allows company
associates to post important notices in various predefined
formats.
Directory of Companies This is a listing of all registered
associates of the B2B portal either by business category or by
alphabetical order. An advanced search engine tool is
incorporated in order to find a company based on data provided.
E-catalog E-catalog — a hierarchy of product and service
categories based on UNSPCS, a global products and services
classification method that covers the broadest collection of
industries and commodities available today, and designed to
facilitate e-commerce transactions by providing
geography-independent common nomenclature system.
Product Content Adding System Product adding mechanism based on
either easy-to-use wizard or simple but detail forms allows
users to integrate products or services with accurate and
up-to-date information.
Product Notification The system can generate an alert and send
by email to a user, who requested to inform once a particular
product or service gets added to the E-catalog.
Numerous other features could be incorporated to an existing B2B
portal depending on requirement, such as: News Aggregation using
RSS feed, Contact Management, Electronic Journal, Press Room,
Document Repository, etc.
Time needed to set up
Using ready made B2B Portal components from a provider like Rusbiz.com a medium size
portal can be built or integrated to existing website within
three to four months. By developing a B2B portal ahead of your
major competitors you can give your business a significant boost
and make your company stand out from the crowd.
Nowshade Kabir
http://www.articlesbase.com/ecommerce-articles/b2b-portal-a-business-platform-to-ultimate-productivity-improvement-1082.html
Cincom CONTROL ERP Brings 20% Productivity Improvement
After only 3 months, Cincom CONTROL ERP (enterprise resource planning) software brought Harris Corporation 20% productivity improvement in both procurement and material management efforts. http://erp.cincom.com
Duration : 0:0:45
Intelligent Document Routing for Business Process Improvement and Staff Productivity
The customer associated with this case study is a major city in the Northeastern part of the United States. This is a single example of the use of OM Plus advanced print spooler software from Plus Technologies to perform Intelligent Document Delivery as a means to improve a business process and increase staff productivity.
Business Problem – The staff at the city was faced with the need to improve the delivery of enterprise reports and significantly cut the turn around time from printing to delivery to the end user. They utilized a centralized pool of large, expensive to maintain and support Xerox production printers in their data center for their enterprise printing. Once the jobs were printed, they were then physically delivered to the requesting end user. This process could take hours or in some cases more than a day. productivity improvement was impossible without more timely delivery of the enterprise reports end users required to perform their jobs. The city needed to develop a master plan to migrate away from large, centralized print assets to a de-centralized network printer architecture so the enterprise reports could be printed close to the requesting end user. The city also needed a plan to support this new environment upon completion of the migration in the most cost effective manner possible.
Key Technical Challenge – The city was faced with a very real challenge regarding their plan to de-centralize printing. When they analyzed the thousands of print jobs that were being printed on their centralized production printers, they determined that most of the jobs were under a couple of hundred pages. The planned network printers could effectively handle these jobs. However, approximately ten to twenty percent of their enterprise application print jobs (this varied dramatically by time of the fiscal quarter) were over 200 pages and would prove to be problematic if they were printed on the network printers. Problems that would arise included:
When a job was larger than the paper input tray of a printer, the job may not completely print until more paper was added (unbeknownst to the user who requested the job and picked it up thinking it was complete) and their information would not be accurate due to lack of pages.
Printers would be monopolized by large jobs creating a bottleneck for end users trying to print, putting the user back at the same point they were before de-centralization, lack of productivity while they waited for the delivery of their print jobs.
Bandwidth on network segments could be over saturated by printing large jobs, causing throughput problems for other users and applications.
The cost per page associated with network printers was higher than the large production printers. This is cost increase was offset by the improved delivery times of small print jobs, however, the cost to print very large jobs on the network printers could not be justified.
Having identified this series of challenges regarding large print jobs, the city decided they would require that large print jobs be printed on a centralized production printer. The staff knew they needed “business rules” at the print spooler to determine the appropriate printer rather than relying on end users to make the correct determination.
Technical Environment
Heterogeneous Mainframe, Windows, UNIX and Linux environment with packaged and homegrown enterprise applications.
Lexmark and other network printers
Technical Solution
OM Plus is implemented on a Windows server, configured as the enterprise wide print server with redundancy.
OM Plus receives print jobs from their source application and determines the number of pages in the print job.
Based on number of pages in the job, OM Plus delivers it to the requested network printer or re-routes it to the large production printer to take advantage of its lower cost per page.
For any job that is re-routed, an email is sent to the user notifying them that their job has been re-routed.
No changes to applications needed.
Other Features
As a bi-product of installing OM Plus, the customer also gained access to all the other features of OM Plus that are designed to help them control and manage their print jobs and printers.
These features streamlined operations and reduced the costs related to administration and support of their enterprise wide network printer architecture. Costs they anticipated when going to a de-centralized printing model were avoided through central management and control through the OM Plus central administration screen.
Implementation
On site services including installation, system configuration, testing and user training was provided by service engineers from Plus Technologies.
The entire implementation was completed and in production within two weeks of the order.
Results
Printing is new de-centralized.
Intelligent document routing allows for the utilization of lower cost per page centralized printers as business rules dictate.
Reduced print delivery times for the vast majority of print jobs greatly improving staff productivity.
OM Plus job and printer administration features eliminate de-centralized printing support.
Customer Quote
“We faced a significant challenge and risk in migrating our print from a centralized model to a de-centralized model. That risk was significantly reduced through the use of OM Plus because it allows us to do selective, intelligent centralization by job size and manage our entire print architecture from a single screen.”
-Director Information Technology Services
Nicole Summerfield
http://www.articlesbase.com/software-articles/intelligent-document-routing-for-business-process-improvement-and-staff-productivity-113461.html
k. Addressing Improvement and Quality (http://www.opportunitiesfor.biz/)
Use this form to seek or offer services to measure performance, quality, productivity, processes, and competitiveness. Please review the instructions on how to complete the form by clicking on Instructions. Please note that fields with asterisks (*) are mandatory.
Duration : 0:8:22
How to improve enterprise productivity
http://www.LIFECOACHBUSINESS.INFO Do You Want To Improve Your Productivity In Your Company?
Duration : 0:1:18
Manufacturing Engineer – PCB Experience
Manufacturing Engineer with Strong PCB Experience!!
We are a manufacturer of industrial electric motors, controls, and drives that power products and were looking for an experienced Manufacturing Engineer to join our team!
Ideal candidates will have:
- Bachelors Degree in Engineering
- At least 5 years of Engineering experience
Position Highlights:
- Involvement in Make vs. Buy decisions
- Develop capital projects and implement accordingly
- Manage productivity improvement projects
*** Comprehensive relocation available ***
Duration : 0:1:58
Seagull Management and Drop-In Visitors
Laura Stack, the Productivity Pro(R) speaks on drop in visitors at work. http://www.TheProductivityPro.com
Duration : 0:0:25