Investing in Canadian Manufacturing
In this article, Corporate VP Mark Lichtblau explains the importance of keeping the manufacturing industry in Canada and creating local economies.
The Eight P’s of Productivity
In the May 2011 issue of Canadian Plastics, I wrote an article about what I termed “The Seven C’s of Success.” Since then, I’ve received quite a few questions about the piece, most wanting to know how to get a company ready to adopt the “C’s” in the first place.
My response is this article, which sets out the foundation that allows a company to build a rigid framework for day-to-day operations, with more structure guidance and less room for error. I call it “The Eight P’s of Productivity.”
- Process: The standardization of all activities that take place in the operational process flow of the business. If all staff members, on every shift, are to work cohesively and in synchronization, they all have to know how they interact and affect each other.
- Policy: The written formalization of various company policies, ranging from showing up on time to vacation requests to work standards. Having a written policy sets a clear, transparent understanding of the rules and expectations for every employee.
- Profitability: It’s a simple word, but not so simple to formalize as a management strategy. But incorporating profit into your goals, objectives and strategies forces a company to act in a disciplined and forward-thinking manner.
- Perfection: Again, another simple word. But ask yourself, “How do we ensure that our shipping accuracy, or our invoicing, is perfect every time?”, and you get a sense of the challenge. There’s a big difference between trying and succeeding.
- Perseverance: The ability of management to develop an employee culture that’s resilient to increasing volatility, year over year. Great management isn’t about extracting every ounce of energy from your employees, but about developing your employees’ resources, including business stamina and endurance.
- Precision: Think of this as a synonym for “lean” or “efficient”. Challenging your staff to perform each act in the most efficient manner with the least amount of waste and error can have surprisingly good results.
- Positivity: The right attitude when communicating can be critical in business and in life. In other words, how you “message” something sets an important tone. Being positive can’t make bad news look good, but it can stop bad news from looking devastating.
- Professionalism: Professionalism has nothing to do with the size of a company; it’s about elevating your operation to the highest standard possible. Are you doing you can to act like a professional organization?
About 15 years ago, our company installed and commissioned our first multilayer line with a vertical oscillating discharge nip. The posted instructions read as follows: “Ensure the nip is level and aligned; ensure the air-turning bar is perfectly angled to discharge the nip; while running film through the production line, increase or decrease the angle of the air-turning bar to the centre web.”
The lesson? You have to ensure that everything is being carried out properly before you can fine tune a process. In the same way, take this editorial ahead of my editorial from May. When your company has mastered the P’s of productivity, then it’s time to tackle the C’s of success.
Haremar featured as an EVS success story, for the second time
Last year, Haremar Plastics Manufacturing had the pleasure of being featured on the Escape Velocity Systems (EVS) website to talk about the successes we’ve had with O2 Process Manufacturing and O2 Mobile Warehouse software systems.
When EVS called us back a month ago for a follow-up interview, we were happy to participate again.
