Working with Manufacturing Consulting Services, Inc. FAQ
Why?
Why should we engage fully with these “Continuous Process Improvement” methods?
Historically, once our clients are armed with a focused plan that maximizes profitability and business-cycle survivability, and reduces business hassle, they are easily able to pay for the expense of these consulting services (typically 5 to 10 times over at a minimum) within two years.
Knowing your organization’s central constraints, and then hunting them down and killing them, one after another in sequential order, is the custom part of our consulting engagements.
We lead the first 3 or 4 improvement projects and then begin coaching either you or your selected staff member(s) to lead subsequent projects. We do this because we frequently find WAY too many interdependent tasks that need improving for just one process-improvement team. The object is to transform your organization to be independently self improving.
You obtain an organization that becomes self-managing. You can finally develop additional business opportunities or personal opportunities without fear of your operation blowing up while you are away.
Why Should you work with manufacturing consulting services Inc.?
We have a consistent track record. Clients who actually DO these processes for two years will double to triple their profitability in addition to significantly reducing executive hassles. Other very common metrics include significantly improving delivery reliability, improving both design quality and execution quality, improving both operational and mix flexibility, and of course, reducing cost.
The combination of our business management acumen in connection with operations optimization in a dozen industries is unique in this market. Many firms have either business or operations acumen, but finding one with both business AND operations acumen is very rare.
Improvements in cross departmental communication are very common within our client base. In addition there is usually a steady decrease in departmental infighting… but not usually at first. By relaxing/eliminating sequential central constraints that cross your whole organization, we steadily reduce the operational sources of your organization’s internal pain and discomfort, thus reducing the need for the bickering and fighting. At least some of the very real inter-departmental pain actually has to go away to generate sufficient hope to impact the bickering and infighting.
For manufacturers, there is also a very common acceleration of inventory turns as well as “finding” production space that has been hiding for years… or decades.
We actually care about your business and your chronic pain going away. In fact this is our “Just Cause” for existence! See testimonials.
Why should I believe that what you do is relevant to my business?
Even though Manufacturing Consulting Services, Inc. started out working with manufacturers (what a surprise… eh!), we have successfully applied this to a variety of service firms with very little difference in outcomes and only a few differences in methods (see the question “Who”). After an initial consultation we will be able to identify if there is a significant fit between your needs and our services. In fact, if there is not we will not take you as a new client.
Why can you even possibly think that you can improve my business when you’ve never been in any business in my industry?
See the Real Results: Case Studies. The fact is that usually when we go into a new business, we have never been in any business in that industry. The methods we teach cross industries and economic sectors but are just not available in business or technical educations. In fact, they are usually not taught at all outside of Industrial Engineering. Not just any engineering but Industrial Engineering in particular. And even then, students who acquire the tools in Industrial Engineering typically don’t have access to apply them anywhere in the organization before or after physical production process creation/improvement. The process improvement tools are viewed as “Oh, that’s great… for production… but it’s not relevant in MY department.” It’s not that the clients we work with are unmotivated or uneducated or just not very smart. Quite the contrary! They are typically motivated, educated, hard-working and very bright… they have just never recognized or acquired & developed the tool set.
Elsewhere in the site we have referred to Mr. Ward’s undergraduate students literally turning around businesses. This condition would not even exist if business development systems were created equally or if these methods were widely available. Undergraduate students shouldn’t be able to turn around businesses… you would think. These methods ARE learnable and very successfully applicable by those who are motivated and hard-working.
What is more, there is not any rocket science in the first several projects. Typically, identifying the correct project path is the hard part. Fixing the identified, critical systems is the fun, collaborative, problem-solving part. As we get further into a company, eventually we have to introduce statistical improvement methods. There is a little bit of rocket science in this… but not much.