Make a Better Product Through Better Business Practices
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By Anders Nostdahl
As a manager in today’s business world, the constant wrestling with business processes is an event that will never end. The best way for a manager to deal with it is by making the opponent in this wrestling match smaller. What I am trying to say is that by making your business processes more efficient and manageable; a manager will be able to deal with unexpected events more easily and swiftly. For those who do not know, a business process is a collection of related tasks that produce a specific service or product for a particular customer or customers. For an accounting class last year, we took a field trip to a company called HOTSTART, which specialize in the development and implementation of engine heating systems. A manager there walked us through their manufacturing center and showed us what problems they faced, and how they became more efficient. Below are three ways a manager can squeeze out every last drop of efficiency out of a manufacturing line.
PERSONALLY PARTICIPATING
The manager at HOTSTART told us that when he first arrived he knew nothing about manufacturing engine heaters. What gave him the competitive edge was actually going through the manufacturing line personally and learning all the positive and negative aspects of how they were putting together their project. The raw and personal information that he learned from applying himself to the task was invaluable to him and his accounting team.LEAN ACCOUNTING TEAM
HOTSTART’s accounting division has adopted a term for decreasing bottlenecks around their plant. The term lean accounting refers to making changes in a business process that allows its workers to become more efficient. From there, they created a lean accounting team. They go around and analyze each section of the manufacturing process and find the most efficient way to do that part of the line. For example, the manufacturing line was occurring to many costs and was falling behind in their orders. The employees were getting physically sore and were losing efficiency during the building of their products. During some parts of manufacturing process employees are either sitting or standing. The lean accounting team used time management as well as employee comfort rating that have made the line that much more efficient.DON’T BE AFRAID
The manager that was giving the tour stressed that trying new things was vital to improving bottlenecks and making his manufacturing line more efficient. At first he was not so eager to implement drastic changes to the line, in fear of trying something and it failing and costing more money. He and his lean accounting team have tried and failed many times experimenting with new and more efficient means of performing tasks on their lines. But when they finally an adjustment, it more than covers the expenses that his lean accounting team end up spending. For example, the task of attaching the protective plastic on their big engine heaters was costing them time and money. After many weeks of trying new ideas and failing they found a solution. They created a suspension machine that carried all the necessary tools and which suspended an employee over the engine to attach the protective plastic onto the heater. This new more efficient way saved them so much more money in the long term and covered the lean accounting teams costs all while doubling their efficiency rating.Mr. Nostdahl is a business student at Whitworth University
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