2022 New Year’s Resolutions Your Business Needs to Keep
This is article is part of a series of monthly articles produced by Harbour Results for PMA’s MetalForming Business Edge e-newsletter. Click here to view the full collection of articles.
Many of you couldn’t be happier to see 2021 come to a close. The past two years have been challenging for the metalforming industry – to say the least. However, before ringing in the new year, leaders need to consider what work needs to be done in 2022 to improve performance, maintain or grow margin and continue to battle the headwinds facing the industry – labor and supply chain shortages, increased cost of doing business and inconsistent demand.
So where should leaders begin? What are the key areas companies should focus on to drive performance improvement? Following are six New Year’s resolutions that you should consider making and implementing in your organization.
1. Control What You Can Control and Lead with Accountable Behaviors
From our perspective there has never been a better time for leaders to lead; control what you can and drive accountability. Embrace the new normal that you are experiencing and go to work on improving your business. There are a million excuses that can be blamed for poor performance, so focus on what you can improve and put a plan in place.
2. Measure Performance with Actionable KPIs
If you have KPIs already in place, you have taken the first step. Now ensure that how you are measuring performance and the KPIs you are using are actionable. If you are achieving your KPIs – great. What is the next step to further improve performance? Are you falling short, what do you need to change, add or remove to improve? An example of an actionable KPI is tracking efficiency daily in the form of dollars of value-add per full-time equivalent employee: This KPI can help drive better decisions tomorrow about how to maximize the production value from the people you have today. activities.
3. Standardize Processes, Eliminate Dependency on Tribal Knowledge
Take a look across your organization and determine what processes should be captured and standardized. Standard processes deliver numerous benefits – ensure consistency and quality, improve training, onboarding, efficiency and accuracy to name a few.
4. Rely on Your Data to Make Optimal Decisions and Manage Complexity
Data is a business leader’s best friend. Make a commitment to collect data across your company – both operational and financial. Analyze your data and utilize it to inform business decisions. Data doesn’t lie, is not biased and is more reliable than gut instinct. Do you really need to invest in a new piece of equipment or is the opportunity to improve efficiency and increase capacity with your current equipment? The data will let you know.
5. Increase Automation Deployment with a Focus on Labor Augmentation
Do you have a technology roadmap in place at your facility? What is your plan and how will you use automation to help bridge the talent gap and drive efficiency improvements? This does not mean that you need to be 100% automated by the end of 2022, but a plan should be in place for how your company can leverage technology to streamline operations.
6. Schedule with Confidence, Know Your True Production Potential
With demand spiking, scheduling inefficiencies are impacting stampers’ ability to meet customer timelines. To schedule with confidence BOMs must match reality so the schedule has accurate inputs to display and schedule against. By understanding your real capacity and scheduling the work to fill it you are able to proactively address any challenges.
The Bottom Line
The bottom line is that you cannot become complacent. Improvement is endless, it never stops, and leaders must foster a culture of continuous improvement. By encouraging your team to be creative and look across the value stream for improvements, your organization will benefit. If a challenge presents itself, assign a cross-functional team to review the data and brainstorm options to address the issues.
As you set your 2022 New Year’s resolutions, we encourage you to put them on paper, create an action plan and revisit them often. Statistics say that only 9% of those who set resolutions accomplish them – will you be part of that group?
About the author:
Jason C. Brewer, a Director at Harbour Results, helps clients develop business strategy and assists them with improving their operations and sales processes to achieve their strategic objectives. In addition to over a decade of experience consulting manufacturers, Jason has held engineering positions in manufacturers, management and executive positions in business development and strategy. He is a licensed Professional Engineer and certified Strategic Management Professional by the Association of Strategic Planning.
