“We’ll figure it out later” is a comment that tells the typical scheduler the customer isn’t going to be held accountable for changes they demand. Another comment is, “No big deal, it’s only a couple of dollars”. The point here is dollars are sitting on the table. It seems like we do a poor job of identifying and managing the dollars we spend on the small stuff. People are right, it is only a small amount. But when you have a bunch of the small stuff 20 times a day, 5 days a week, 52 weeks a year, that’s a heck of a lot of money we’ve squandered. You and I wouldn’t do it with our own money! If you don’t believe it, watch how cheap we all get in the grocery store.
The issue here is we have to make more money than we spend if we want to stay in business. In addition, we have to make enough extra, so we have enough to grow the business too. If not, we’ll be out of business. Somewhere along the line we HAVE to make money from the manufacturing part of our business. If we make money from manufacturing, we have a chance to make money as a business. If we can’t make money from our manufacturing processes, we may still make money overall but not long term. This situation usually occurs when a company sells off a division, or equipment, or building or something. These sales are one time events. If we were to continue selling off our assets, eventually we have no assets to use to make our product and we’re out of business. This is akin to the person who lives beyond their paycheck and has to hold a garage sale every other month to have enough money to pay the bills. We all know it’s going to catch up to them.
The only entity that seems to get away with this is the government and we’re not the government and we’re still not sure if they will ultimately get away with it
It’s taken me many years to figure it out but having little or no debt, as well as enough money in my pocket for emergencies gives me a lot of freedom and power to do what I want to. It’s no different with a business. Figure out how to manage your money as if it were your own.
BLOG AUTHOR:
CHUCK NEMER
CSCP, CPIM, CLTD, CHSCA, CSSC, CPIA
FOUNDER, THE GURU OF BIZ
EMAIL : chuck@theguruofbiz.com
WE HELP SUPPLY CHAIN PROFESSIONALS MAKE MONEY, SAVE MONEY, AND FIX PROBLEMS WITHOUT PAYING BIG FEES
Chuck Nemer is a trainer/consultant with 40 years of experience in Supply Chain Management, Lean, Leadership, and APICS. He currently works with approximately 50 universities and 3000 students annually in supporting the use and play of the simulations in the classroom. Within those 40 years, he has taught, and continues to teach, professional certification classes for APICS, professional development seminars and programs on his own, and on behalf of colleges in their outreach programs to local and regional manufacturing firms.
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