This week we shipped three container loads of the gloopy stuff all on the same day!  I also spent some time on the backlog of 100 drums of dye solutions that has been building up while waiting for the new CLP label design. Both of these had successful outcomes.

However perhaps the most significant outcome has been the time I have been able to devote to working on the business with a focus on system improvements and strategic matters. This is what I’m supposed to be doing, or “sitting on the white horse” as one of my staff calls it.

It is clear that the business has developed to the stage that requires attention to the interface and communication issues between different functions so that they run smoothly and quickly no matter what the variation. The additional overhead resource that we are carrying must be made to add value rather than cost, it must not be an excuse for delay or error it must be made to reduce them. This is both a people thing and a system thing.

I believe that we need to introduce two or three internal KPIs to focus attention on the interface issues. This will expose some of the underlying problems that need to be addressed and eliminated.

There are also the questions of new business development and the earlier elimination of unprofitable business. Attracting more business via the website is a major question because it is easy to criticise the site for various reasons but a lot more difficult to identify which words to use to attract and keep a potential customer’s attention when the service that we offer can be described in so many different words according to the customer’s perception of his/her need. It seems to me that all this SEO nonsense is meaningless if we can’t use the same words that the customer is searching for. This week we have at least a good working draft of our “core story”. I think we should wrap the website around it but treat it as a passive tool rather than an active one. We should use targeted campaigns as our active lead generation tool.

The early elimination or reversal of unprofitable business is a system issue in that the identification of customer profitability follows from our improved data collection. We need to turn the data into actions and take them quickly. In that context I wonder if this is solely a matter of improved management or if the system or software should be improved. For this reason I accepted an offer to participate in a webinar next week from a company that claims to have software that has been developed specifically for our sort of business and claims an impressive ROI. Next week maybe I’ll be a believer.

In other areas mechanical genius has nearly finished the bag filler refurbishment and added a nice little feature whereby the filled bag can be rolled away to the sealing step and be served with dust extraction throughout.

The tyre sealant product was finished at the beginning of the week and then the customer’s collection arrangements resulted in the truck turning up with insufficient capacity to carry the whole load. It made a nonsense of the pressure to get the job finished last week but once again makes my mysterious logistics point.

The “jumble sale” pallet is still a “jumble sale”. The truck load of goods from the green company has been booked on to the stock list but we don’t have any formulations to turn them into finished goods yet. I’m still worried that we will come under pressure to make products and we don’t know how to or whether we have enough of the materials.

Good news at the last minute yesterday when our client for the dye solution announced that the samples from the batch we made this week were all exactly on spec using the new assay method that he has developed, with a little bit of help from us. This is encouraging for a number of reasons but mostly because it validates our process.

Its good to be back on the white horse. Lets see if I’m still there next week!

Blatter did resign. I’m so pleased.