Money-saving ideas for the profit-minded supervisor. (Treasure Chest)
Supervision February 1, 1992 | Mintcloud, Buckley Money-saving ideas for the profit-minded supervisor According to the experts who make such predictions, work-at-home is a trend that is destined to mushroom in the months and years ahead. It won’t be confined to low-ranking employees.
“Telecomputing,” New York City management consultant Ralph C. Hiller informs TREASURE CHEST, “is helping a growing number of companies hang on to highly skilled and specialized professionals. At Pacific Bell, for example, almost 6 percent of the company’s 17,000 managers now work at home part time. Marketing, systems, accounting and other professionals spend two to four days per week at home, visit the office a day or two to attend meetings, pick up information and instructions.” Hiller adds that in operations where performance is efficiently measured and monitored, the concept makes good sense for a number of reasons. It enlarges the available job market, creates appreciated opportunities for working parents of small children, provides time flexibility for working couples where one partner or the other is tied up at odd hours, achieves a recruitment edge over less flexible competitors.
Distribution packages don’t work, according to Raleigh North Carolina’s Tompkins Associates Inc. “With today’s computing power,” says Jim Tompkins, president, “why mess around with a model which uses average when you can simulate actual (shipment weight and distance) data? Why use a package when real cost analysis is available?” The canned package, adds Tompkins, uses an “internal freight generator” whereas the Tompkins program relies on experiential factors based on historical evidence and computer-generated at high speed.
Question One: Are your employees routine workers or do you try to get them into the act? Question Two: How sacrosanct is the chain of command in your company?
At Brother, the Japanese electronics firm, chain of command, while respected, is not inviolate. It’s traditionally strict, but not self-defeatingly strict, says Brother President Hiromi Gunji with a mischievous grin.
At Brother, sales figures, profits and the cost of new investments are disclosed to all employees. The company’s “take-a-worker-to-lunch” plan requires top brass to dine with different employees every day. Thus, by year’s end, all 350 secretaries, warehouse workers and middle managers have had at least two lunchtime opportunities to voice their opinions to higher-ups. Brother also encourages employees to bring ideas directly to anyone in the company without worrying about chain of command. Decisions are made by high level managers; but before they are made it’s open house for the staff. website act question of the day
What’s going on? Circuit breakers keep tripping out for no apparent reason. Ammeter readings are normal, and there’s no correlation between trips and peak load conditions. What to do?
Quick, Henry, fetch a low-ranging (zero to a few volts) digital voltmeter, suggests Plant Engineering magazine. “With the driven load in operation, take voltage readings from line to load side across each phase of the breaker. Any voltage drop exceeding about a half volt indicates a high-resistance connection. This builds up heat and actuates the thermal trip element. To correct the problem, repair or replace the breaker.
It’s not the only possible trip cause, PE states, but a common one.
In the market for a new typewriter, word processor or personal computer? Hold on, don’t rush out that purchase requisition yet? Before placing an order, conduct a typing analysis with the following questions in mind:
* How many hours of typing do you anticipate each day, week, month or year?
* What kind of documents do you produce: letters, statistical or prose reports, memos, press releases, invoices, purchase orders, etc.?
* What’s the typing volume in terms of pages? To what degree has this increased (or decreased) over the past year or so?
* How much calculating is involved? How complicated?
* Are you in a position to project future usage?
* How long are your letters, memos, reports, etc.? How much editing is usually required? If typists don’t work off a screen, how much retyping is usually done?
* Are your typists good spellers? How helpful would a built-in dictionary be?
* How much statistical and tabular work will be required?
* How much time do typists spend on error correction?
* How much interdepartmental equipment sharing is feasible?
* How much typing, composing, printing, etc., do you farm out? How much could you save by increasing in-house capability?
* How much typed information do you have to have stored in a memory bank? in our site act question of the day
* What about tax investment credits, depreciation and other accounting factors?
Now that you have all this information collated and presented, take it to a communications expert and get his or her advice.
Has General Motors’ Saturn division gone Nipponese? Good question. According to Time, Saturn’s mission is “to build small cars as well as the Japanese and then some.” To achieve this goal, it has invested eight years and $3.5 billion to launch its daring Saturn experiment.
Why is the venture so revolutionary? First, it publicly acknowledges Japan’s auto manufacturing superiority over the past two decades. Second, it attributes the Nipponese advantage, not to advanced technology, low wages or some mystical Asian work ethic, but to people.
Says Time: “Japan’s most important advantage is its management system: the way it deals with employees, suppliers, dealers and customers. A historic $5 million M.I.T. study of the world’s auto companies concluded that Japan’s advantages boil down to a few elements, including teamwork, efficient use of resources and a tireless commitment to improving quality.” So what else is new?
If you get a funny looking post card in the mail, think twice before discarding it. It might just be a check.
“In our company, small disbursements ($50 or less),” Allison McGraw, office manager at Turner, Evans & Lee Inc., a California consumer products distributor, writes TREASURE CHEST, “are paid by post card check. The savings add up. Eliminated are three carbon copies, the standard draft and mailing envelope. Not to mention reduced labor and postage costs. Also a thing of the past are check protector use, voucher typing, envelope stuffing, invoice posting, etc.
“Control’s no problem,” adds McGraw. “Payee endorsement is required for each payment, maximum payable amount is preprinted on the face of the check. There are mechanically applied sequence numbers.” What about U.S. Post Office acceptance? “We’ve had no beefs thus far,” says McGraw. “But if you plan on going this route, it might be a good idea to check it out.” Is burr removal a required part of your plant operation? It is at Bancroft Electric Co. Inc., a medium size Texas manufacturing company. Until 11 months ago, BEC used deburring knives for this process.
Past tense. It now uses tacks, rock chips, soap and water in a tumbling machine to remove the burrs that cling to metal parts after sanding. Eight to 10 parts are tumbled per load. The time saved is substantial, adding up to an estimated annual profit gain of $36,000.
In the experience of Florida management consultant Leonard J. Smith, engineering efficiency can be significantly upgraded through the use of cost-effective drafting standards. Smith suggests the following guidelines:
* Record all engineering tasks and assign a time factor to each. This will pinpoint how long each task should take and will help you spot misapplication of professional time, duplication and poor matching of assignments to individual skills.
* Functionalize charts and drawings. Neatness counts, frills don’t. Analyze the time it takes to make drawings and minimize wherever possible.
* Spell out standards clearly in guideline manuals. This will help you compare actual vs. projected performance on all tasks except those that are creative and thus not measurable.
* Follow task analysis and monitoring with realignment of responsibilities in line with identified talents and skills.
How much money does your company spend on expensive binding of reports, manuals, transaction documents, etc.? A Buffalo, N.Y., insurance firm asked this question and saved $3,850 per year — by substituting three-ring binders.
Mintcloud, Buckley
