10 things that

make

companies

unproductive

(or, “I probably should stop doing that”)

By not filtering spam from in-boxes, companies are losing a

lot of employee productivity. Some estimates of the impact of

SPAM on the US economy have been as high as 20 billion

dollars. There are two methods of dealing with SPAM. The

first is using a service to pre-filter your email, like McAfee's

SaaS email program. The second is by using an internal

SPAM filter, like Baraccuda's SPAM firewall. Both essentially

do the same thing. By using an algorithm, they analyze each

email and decide to send it on or trash it for you.

10) SPAM

Sounds crazy simple, but so often

companies have reports that are being

printed and put into binders that no-one

reads. This is one of the easiest things you

can do to increase productivity. Do a quick

audit of the reports that are being created by

your staff. If it is not needed, don't spend

time creating them.

9) Creating reports that are not used.

Customer service requests can drive up costs as more phone lines

are required, as well as people to staff them. Often, however, the

information that your staff is providing could be delivered to your

customers in alternate ways. This is especially true of status

information, directions, delivery times, material data sheet requests,

and any other static or data driven requests. Static information, like

hours of operations, locations, etc., can be moved to a website or

phone system. Data driven information can be exposed to

customer via internet portals, where your clients can get the

information they need when they need it.

8) Consistent or data driven customer requested

information delivered by a person.

Spreadsheets have been a driving force in launching the personal

computer revolution of the early 1980's. They are one of the easiest

programs that people can use to manipulate numbers. Because of this,

employees will use them to produce useful tools for doing their jobs.

Typically, they are taking information from one source and re-keying it into

a spreadsheet of their creation or worse yet, they are keying the source

data into the spreadsheet and hoping to update the other systems later.

These "shadow systems" become more trusted than any other system for

those individuals and often compromise the integrity of the corporate

system. To solve this issue, there needs to be a single source for the data

and all of the required reporting should be created by a report writing tool.

7) Spreadsheets for reports from data in a

data base.

This is very similar to the above, but extends beyond just

spreadsheets. Typically what happens, is, a company needs the

data in multiple places - their CRM program, the accounting system,

and perhaps a member listing on their website. So, the same

information is maintained in multiple systems. Sooner or later one

system becomes the "truth" and the other systems degrade or

additional effort and resources are required to ensure all systems

contain the same data. Integrating these system through

import/export is often the best solution. This integration is best if

done automatically and monitored for success.

6) Repetitive entry of the same data for

different reasons.

Often you get information from a customer or a

vendor in paper format that they have in digital

format. You are spending money having someone

key that information into your systems. You can

provide methods for your customers and vendors to

connect into your digital world. There are many

examples of this from Electronic Data Interchange

to Mobile Apps.

5) Re-keying electronically available

information from another source.

If there are ANY printed forms being used by your company, you

are wasting time. Someone must take those written forms and key

them into some system for processing. Work orders, customer

information, employee information, inventory count sheets are some

excellent examples of manual paper work that are still being used

by many companies. With the advent of wireless networks, the

drop in prices of tablet computers, and the power of cell phones, the

cost of providing data collection devices to the people that are filling

out paperwork is now very affordable. By collecting the data at the

data collection point, you will get higher accuracy and a significant

drop in the probability of lost information.

4) Manually collecting data at the data

collection point.

This is so often overlooked by companies. They produce

packing slips and then have staff go, find, and pack each

order without assistance or organization. By organizing your

warehouse and giving your staff tools to efficiently pull

product, you can increase the accuracy and reduce the time

to fulfill. There are a lot of tools to solve this, from fully

automated pick and pull systems like the one used at the

Mansueto Library of the University of Chicago, to just simply

organizing your warehouse using the 80 / 20 rule where 20%

of your products are organized near each other and they

account for 80% of your picks.

3) Inefficient stocking/picking of a

warehouse.

Businesses are still printing and filing pieces

of paper. They are writing on pieces of

paper and that information is only found on

that paper. All of that effort can be

eliminated. By collecting all of the required

data electronically and then connecting it so

we can retrieve it quickly, the storage space

and related labor can be eliminated.

2) Storing and finding manually

collected or written information.

If you don't provide your staff with the

information and tools to do their jobs at their

highest level, they will build them. Because

these ad hoc systems are not integrated into

the company’s system, there are hours and

hours of extra time invested to make them

work.

1) Inadequate or incorrect tools to get the

work done.