Welcome to this new series of blogs. The purpose of me writing these blogs is to help local companies meet Their Goals, Objectives and Directives. This series of blogs are designed to give your organization suggestions on were to look to profitably compete and, second; how to successfully change your organization for sustainable growth. We will from time to time have blogs that deal with specific events that are unfolding. Also If you have any specific topics you would like addressed please feel free to email me and I will try to address them in my blogs.
Over my 18 years of working with international manufacturing and Utility companies, mainly outside of Canada; one of the areas that has always amazed me has been the approach to Continuous Improvement by some senior managers. Management teams would constantly utilize the experience and guidance of lawyer's, accountants, and financial planners for advice on the most cost effective way to approach business, while minimizing the risk to the organization. But when it came to sustainable Asset Improvement, few companies would seek to find an experienced person to help guide the management team towards the most cost effective approach to improve and, more importantly, ensure sustainable Asset Management results.
I have also found it interesting how companies tend to keep their Sales and Marketing departments / divisions at a distance from their manufacturing divisions. Sales and Market are an extremely important part of any business. If no one is willing to buy your product, then why do you need capital money invested in equipment, land, buildings, warehouse space, etc. , to produce the "widget"? Manufacturing facilities must be able to quickly adopt to the demands of the sales department and be able to feed new and creative ideas to both Sales and Marketing, While at the same time meeting the supply chain needs in a cost effective manor. I will also be talking about this link and the type of manufacturing culture required which can assist your Sales and Market initiatives with these blogs
I have lived in the Waterloo Region all of my life. This region has provided me the experience necessary to launch a successful International Firm by helping Manufacturing and Utility organizations to compete in the Global Market place. I look forward to utilizing the Best-In-Class and World-Class experiences I have gained over the years to give back and help local companies meet their manufacturing Goals, Objectives and Directives.
2 Comments
These are key competitiveness issues!
In particular, the issue of how close sales and marketing people work with their counterparts in manufacturing is a critical one for our industry in facing the challenge of global competition. Canadian companies that can respond swiftly and accurately to customer needs can overcome the cost advantages of their competitors in low-wage countries.
Ideally, marketing channels the voice of the customer to a company's design/development department, enabling the latter to rapidly produce products that meet or exceed customer needs. Manufacturing engineering is involved from the outset, to ensure that what is designed can be made and will take full advantage of the company's capabilities. It would be interesting to know the extent to which Waterloo area companies (and Canadian companies, in general) employ an idea that has been around for quite a while: cross functional teams, involving marketing, design engineering, production engineering, and, of course, customer representatives, to develop new products (aka concurrent engineering, product teams, etc.). Also, to what extent are these companies using information technology to allow cross functional teams, whose members may be geographically dispersed, to function cohesively?
Yes, that would be interesting to know how well Waterloo companies are utilizing cross functional teams. Cross functional teams are a must, if you want to drive down costs while increasing market share in the current global economy.