Strategy for Brexit; Are you creating competitive advantage, or waiting the turn of the cards?
Change is hard. And the only thing worse than change is uncertainty. But there is one thing that most would agree on right now and that is that the next two years will be surrounded in uncertainty. So how do we prepare our businesses to survive and thrive in an unknown economic climate? Logic would tell us to wait to [...]
Why Invest in Lean When it Doesn’t Work?
Too often when I introduce myself to someone new I hear: “Please do not mention the word ‘lean’.” “Why?” “For two years, we worked on it very hard and gave it up because of the lack of results”, is a frequent reply. Sadly it isn’t unheard of for companies to spent a lot of money on training and invest in [...]
How Much Risk Could You Fly With?
We often have to compromise when making judgements and deal with the consequential risk, good or bad. But where do you draw the line on what is a good enough measure? For example, is 99.9% certainty in your processes good enough? Implicitly, we all know the answer should be no, but secretly you are probably thinking, “If I could achieve [...]
Manufacturing and Engineering Show – Value by Design
Gavin Jones (New Potential) and Des Kennedy (Infinite Design) speaking at the North East Manufacturing and Engineering Show this week. Providing insight and helpful take-aways to support businesses in identifying how to increase value for their customers and be more strategic about how they apply improvement efforts to benefit their business.
When You Hit the Improvement Wall, How Do You Hit Back?
Most companies I meet have undertaken some form of Lean Six Sigma activity. However, it is unfortunately common for many companies to make some progress, hit a plateau and then get distracted when things aren’t going as quickly as they were before. This whole phenomenon is a bit like hitting traffic on your way home from work and abandoning your car on the [...]
Flushing Profit Down the Pan, Without Toilet Roll
Who could have predicted that the unpretentious toilet roll could have caused a recent BA flight to Barbados with 280 people on board to be delayed by more than 5 hours - resulting in potential claims of up to £290,000. The captain said "in 26 years of flying he had never had such an experience that impacted on crew and [...]