- Is the current equipment giving you good results?
- Do you need to replace several pieces of equipment with more efficient machinery?
- Can the equipment you are replacing be used elsewhere in your company?
- Will its acquisition be a long-run investment?
- Would it be better to rent equipment?
- Will you use all the features, or are they simply gadgets?
- Have you considered the costs of training employees on new equipment?
BDC Advisory Services can help you analyze your space and resources, improve your plant layout and eliminate processes that add no value .
Contents
1. Use technology to improve your operations
Web-based technologies enable you to dramatically improve how you run your business. You ‘re a good campaigner if you ‘re looking to increase market share, aggressively pursue cost reduction or greater efficiency, or prevent customer-service problems. Production management tools range from spreadsheets to off-the-rack software solutions or business-specific, custom-developed applications. hera are some examples :
- E-purchasing (online buying) is an alternative vehicle you can use to get your materials from suppliers. This technology enables you to get more competitive pricing as you are no longer limited to local merchants. Generally, the cost of transaction processing is reduced and there is less paperwork.
- Smart inventory control systems can help you reduce inventory levels, improve profitability and speed up customer response time. Online and order management systems integrate inventory information with your organization’s purchasing, accounting and e-business systems, so you can easily track order status and the movement of inventory within your company. You will also be able to identify peak and low periods, allowing you to adjust supply purchases and better manage working capital.
It besides helps to keep abreast of technical developments and ensure that your business is taking advantage of the latest innovations to improve productivity. You can use the web or attend trade wind shows to stay on top of new engineering. Trade shows are a capital resource as software vendors frequently make their information available to attendees. You can besides network with other organizations in your industry that may have already tried and tested modern innovations. Finding out what your competitors are doing can narrow your search down for solutions that are specific to your diligence. BDC Advisory Services can help you establish survival criteria and identify electric potential software suppliers.
Read more: Growth Equity
2. Review your existing setup
Look at your processes from the point of position of a electric potential investor. Keep in heed the overall objective and vision of the business, and ensure the processes meet those goals and add prize. Draw an accurate map of each summons in your material and data menstruation. By doing this, you can better understand the links between assorted elements of your output, and you will be better equipped to identify and eliminate waste throughout your company .
3. Implement a continuous improvement approach
Improving productivity is an ongoing activity. here are some suggestions for setting up a continuous improvement plan :
- Start by assessing the competition and the best practices in your industry, also known as benchmarking. But don’t copy plans of other businesses—develop one that works for your company.
- Get external help to assess your business weaknesses and strengths. This gives you an objective viewpoint from which you can improve productivity and redesign processes.
- Take a bit-by-bit
approach rather than tackling everything at once. Focusing on a few priorities will enable you to see results faster.
- Assign specific teams to specific problems or processes for redesign.
- Put a formal suggestion system in place for employees.
- Look for breakthrough accomplishments. Small improvements can transform into major increases in productivity.
- Measure your results. Ideally, this should be done by an objective outside party.
- Take a bit-by-bit
Outsourcing can be a cost-efficient means to focus your efforts on what you do good as a occupation and make productivity gains. But whether you choose to outsource logistics, report, payroll, public relations or IT, it ‘s vital to beginning grasp what drives costs and profits in your company. Before you get started, it ‘s authoritative to assess your current product and costs such as location, cargo and client proximity. You need to know precisely which core functions increase revenues and which noncore functions increase your expenses and affect your productiveness .
many entrepreneurs do n’t tap into outsourcing opportunities because they fear they might lose control of their business or are concerned about expenses. And although these may be valid concerns, outsourcing works if you take the mighty steps. BDC Advisory Services can provide focus in determining your best outsourcing strategy .
Strategic alliances allow you to grow your arrangement without necessarily expanding its size and incurring more costs. For model, the right alliance could improve your production processes by increasing your economies of scale and broadening your distribution commercialize. An alliance could help your company negociate better provision deals, contribution costs such as advertising or take advantage of costly engineering. Increasing your productivity could besides mean getting into new markets with newly products and services, extending your market range or accelerating research and development by sharing costs and resources .