| 1. | Employee turnover is too high. The costs from this need to be contained. What can we use to reduce turnover and/or its effect? |
| | Dealing with new/ untrained/ unskilled employees is a inevitable headache, but there are approaches to manage this issue. |
| 2. | How do I improve product quality? |
| | You have had some issues with quality as delivered, or your process has been making a lower quality product than you need. |
| 3. | How do I motivate employees to change? |
| | Motivations are subtle, and not always related to pay. |
| 4. | Keeping track of operations is an ongoing challenge. How can I tell the status of operations better? |
| | Too much data and not enough information and knowledge; it’s a frequent issue. You see too many reports, but nothing seems to tell you want you want to know, when you want to know it. |
| 5. | Limited production capacity is a problem. What can I do to improve this situation? |
| | Capacity limits can be due to bottlenecks, layout issues, or many other embedded problems. Teasing out what the real problem is can be the most productive approach. |
| 6. | Lost product and/or materials are an issue. How do I keep better track of inventory and work-in-process? |
| | As workload increases, just keeping track of things can become a problem. Losing materials can have repercussions in cost, delivery, and even in quality. |
| 7. | Machine downtime is excessive. How can this be improved? |
| | Keeping your equipment producing is necessary. Replacing it with the latest may not solve your downtime issues, even if you have the capital to invest. |
| 8. | My warehouse is full or nearing capacity. What options do I have? |
| | You have a lack of space to store product or materials. There may be solutions short of expanding your warehouse, an expensive option. |
| 9. | Our many business processes do not mesh smoothly. What approach can I use to improve this? |
| | It is rare to have all processes mesh well. Since they often have different tactical goals, significant discord can develop over time. |
| 10. | Production costs are too high. What improvement techniques can I apply to lower costs? |
| | Cost pressures are common across all industries. Many costs are due to process problems, and there are many approaches to smooth out work processes. |
| 11. | Scrap rates are unsustainable. What can help reduce these losses? |
| | If you do not have a good measure of scrap rates and costs, you will be surprised at the impact. If you do have a good measure, let's see what changes can be made. |
| 12. | There are many improvement programs: Six Sigma, Lean, and so on. How do I decide which one(s) to invest limited resources? |
| | Out of the many approaches, you need to focus on the best ones. Do they compete, or do they combine? What is needed to start? |
| 13. | Workflow is too uneven; it runs in feast and famine cycles. How can I improve this? |
| | Uneven workflow creates other problems; staffing issues, capacity bottlenecks, cash flow issues, etc. These problems may appear intermittently, giving the appearance that whatever 'solution' is tried has succeeded. |
