it's the little things

In my life, it’s always been the little things that mattered most. The big things either take care of themselves or don’t. Often, there is little I can do to control those. Storms are going to roll through. Things will be late. Things don’t happen the way I want or need them to. In these times, I’m going through the motions of what I need to so that I solve whatever problems these caused for me or take advantage of whatever opportunities they present.

I’m sitting here at lunch, staring down at my can of bubly (blueberry pomegranate flavor) and there’s a little “hiya” etched into the pop top. It’s not something I’ve seen before, or maybe I just haven’t noticed it on prior cans. It’s a small thing but it makes me feel better about their brand, and I’ve long preached that brand is not the look, but the feeling you get.

How’s that working for you in your shop?

production operations

On your production shop floor – heck, in all of our businesses – it can be the little things that mean the most. When an emergency hits, it’s “all hands on deck” and it’s going to have lasting impact on the work your team is doing. Those are things you see on the floor. Or hear. Often, there’s a commotion (or quiet) in some area which is unusual and draws the attention. The little things are often hidden from sight. And they can sometimes cost you the most money. It’s:

• the lack of materials to get a job done, so the operator goes in search of them. You lose time and momentum and, all of a sudden, things are taking longer, are falling behind, and you have to perform scheduling surgery to make it all work.
• a quality check that’s out of tolerance. On paper, your team marks it down, makes it work, and moves it on. Remember that their focus is completing work on time and getting boxes to the shipping dock, so you want them to self-solve where possible. Yet, you’re left with jobs that took an extra part or material, shorting you somewhere else down the line and costing more than you anticipated both now and then, when you run short because you assumed you had the materials to do the work.
• a promise date for a customer that you’re not capable of meeting. You took a guess at that based on the work you had at the time. By the time you received the purchase order for the work, things had changed in the shop and you could no longer meet the demand. If you’re able to communicate that clearly to them when they place the order, that’s one thing entirely. But if you don’t know that until it’s in production and you’re noticing that it might not come out on time, things are blowing up and you might be in self-preservation mode.

paperless manufacturing

We know it can be hard to look at technology as helpful. You’ve had software that didn’t work, customer care teams that weren’t responsive, and product features that didn’t meet your needs. Things took longer than you wanted. Your team didn’t engage as you hoped.

There are so many ways that software can go badly. We’re not going to solve that for everyone, but our team is focused on the small things that we can do to ensure we get you as close to “software nirvana” as possible for you in your current situation. We:

• provide a 1-2-1 relationship for you with a member of our support team. Ask questions. Get answers.
• include training with your annual support costs. Forgot how to use something in Quantum? Have new members on your team? We will provide training classes to them to get them rolling.
• provide contracts with flexibility like billed-as-used. If you’re not sure what you need and we haven’t performed a scope project for you, we can provide an estimate and only bill what we do.
• listen.  You’re going to establish a relationship with our team so that when you reach out, we know what you do, how you use our tools, and how we can provide the fastest assistance.
• offer a solution on both the Oracle Cloud (yay for the highest security in the market) and on-premises. These are identical product platforms. You choose where you want it, and we provide it as you want.

We want you to get an immediate return on what we do. That’s not always possible, but we will direct you to the most helpful path, show you where you can save money and be good stewards of the money you’re going to spend. While money is never a small thing, the small things we do can ensure that you’re spending it where you need to and in the smallest amounts possible.

Infotech Research Group (ITRG) surveys our customers to ask how we’re doing, because as much as we talk about all these things, it’s only if we pull them off that you want to know about it, right? We scored:

• a Net Relationship Footprint of 98 / 100
• #2 in Vendor Support
• 100% positive feedback for vendor-client relationships
• 92% on trustworthiness
• 91% on friendly negotiations
• 91% on caring

100% of the respondents to the survey felt we were respectful, effective, and knowledgeable. Numbers speak louder than any statements we might make. Our team is dedicated. They love what they’re doing. And customers notice that. Because sometimes, it’s the little things that matter most.  Reach out and ask how we can help you.