Without a strong operation, you won’t have a strong business. How to manage operations is all about efficiently managing what you do and how you do it. It starts in the office, runs through the production floor and continues as your product is delivered to customers.
One easy way to manage your operations is to remember your 3 P’s: Process, People, Product
1. How to manage operations – Start With Your Process
Some believe it starts with people. But even the best people will falter if your process is muddled. It’s hard to be productive with cheap tools, broken equipment, confusing operations manuals, disorganized workspace, old computers and copy machines that constantly jam. Here’s a few steps to begin
- Determine workflow: Make a diagram, excel sheet or operational tree to visualize how you produce your product or service. This will help you understand the individual components and how they relate to each other.
- Eliminate bottlenecks: These are the areas that cause your production to slow down or back up.
- Remove risky and unsafe activities: Things are more likely to go wrong in risky environments. To increase safety, run through every operational activity and try to eliminate as much risk as possible.
- Improve activities that add value: Efficiency helps increase profit margins, especially in your high-value activities.
- Remove activities that don’t add value: This one’s easy. Why waste time on things that don’t make you money?
- Initiate help: Try meeting with employees, business advisors, network groups, colleges or anyone who can help brainstorm better ways of doing things.
- Run a cause and effect analysis: Think of this as a giant jigsaw puzzle with moving pieces. Difficult yes. But breaking down the basic organizational structure of your operations and then deciding how they all fit together will help determine what’s negatively affecting what.
- Deal with what you can first: Some things take time, but others can be done right away. Remember, sometimes it’s the small things that can be easily fixed. And these often cause the biggest problems.
2. How to manage operations – Don’t Overlook Your People
Remember that people involved are not always employees. Sometimes these are those providing – services, sales, delivery, repairs, subcontractors or legal/tax help. Managing all involved in your operations from employee to contractor to supplier is daunting. But many times these individuals might just be keeping your company profitable. Or possibly unprofitable.
- Engage workers: Be friendly but not overly familiar. People respond better if they like you. Its human nature to help those we like. Not so much those we don’t.
- Reward Effort: People like to be recognized (if not there’d be no social media). Rewards can be everything from a kind word, thanking someone for their work, work promotion, job perk or monetary reward.
- Foster commitment and trust: This, of course, is a two-way street. People work for you because they get paid. But stay with you when they’re committed. This will only happen if they first trust you, and know you’re committed to them. Remember – Happy workers are better workers.
- Be Clear and Cohesive: People can’t work when instructions are obscure, directions are complicated, processes are problematic, and no one knows how they fit into the process. Make sure everyone understands clearly “how things are done around here” and how everything works together. As much as possible.
- Hold Meetings: Remember the best meetings are short, direct, organized and as infrequent as possible. Long, drawn-out and disorganized meetings defeat the purpose. And the fastest way to make disgruntled employees.
3. How to manage operations – Delivering Better Products
Your product is what your customers pay for, whether tangible or intangible. In this short article, it’s hard to define the best operations for your product. However here are a few quick tips for strengthening your product operations.
- Focus on the good: We typically look for the wrong first. However, I say start at what you do best and analyze what makes it so. Then see if you can duplicate it down the line.
- Look at the big picture: Stand back and look at the entire operational process to make sure you understand where you currently stand and where you want to be. This includes what you currently produce, what could be made better and what possible products do your customers want in the future.
- Take time: Don’t rush things, or your changes might make things worse. Try some smaller experiments with various changes. Run smaller batches with each major change to make sure your product meets expectations.
- Quality Control: Everything you produce should have some way to ensure your quality will meet customer performance demands. In this digital age of smartphones, customer reviews and instant online access, products are undergoing tremendous scrutiny. Sometimes a few bad reviews may just become your products judge, jury and executioner.
- Do what you can first: It’s no use fretting over things you can’t afford when there are changes we can afford now. So, do what you can first and then work on the larger things when your able.