Frustration aside, it can pay a business to have someone at their desk doing their nails, rather than keeping themselves busy doing various projects, according to Brace Lake, Mr. Martin Garage Doors of Buena Park, Ca.
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Lake used the “doing their nails”, waiting for the phone to ring, to illustrate a step to improve the overall flow of business and to reduce inefficient bottlenecks that keep businesses from being more efficient and profitable, at the 2006 Martin Door Dealer Conference.
Using the book “The Goal” by Eliyahu M. Goldratt and Jeff Cox, Lake said the ultimate goal of door companies should be to make money by selling and installing doors, and that doing so efficiently will raise the profit margin.
He said the book focuses on four terms: through-put, which is used to describe the production, speed, quantity and final product; inventory control, cost control and bottlenecks. He cited a bottleneck as anything that hinders through-put or a process that increases inventory without increasing through-put.
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Brace Lake |
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He said in working with his employees they outlined seven steps between an order for a door and final collection of money for the job. He said they then identified where there were bottlenecks in the process. He said his employees came up with three main bottlenecks in their company. They included door installation lead time; measure lead time and phone wait time.
He said with a growing company he found that too often a truck was broken down, an installer was sick or injured and that as a result jobs had to be rescheduled.
“When the installer doesn't get a door installed that day, he becomes idle capacity. He is not paid, or worse he is. This resource is lost forever, it is never regained,” Lake said.
He said the company found it best to buy a spare truck, and institute an injury prevention program. He said the company also instituted a policy of taking digital pictures of the actual tape measurements in doing their estimating, to help eliminate and prevent mistakes in ordering doors.
He also talked about making sure installers have all the right tools and spare parts to be able to finish a job, once at the job site.
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Reading “The Goal” and discussing it with your employees can pay dividends, according to Brace Lake |
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Lake encouraged dealers to read the book and go over it with their employees. He said discussing objectives with employees can help identify your bottlenecks. By addressing bottlenecks through-put will be increased, inventory will be better controlled, and you will make more money, he said.
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