And in a nutshell, that’s what we do for manufacturers. That’s the end result.

And so what you’ll find is that most people out there that do what we do, the people you just mentioned a minute ago, the focus is heavily towards the processes helping manufacturers improve their efficiency, create flow, things like that. But what we do that’s different is that we complement that by having or sharing with manufacturers the right principles so that whatever changes, whatever the future state is, it’s something that’s sustainable.

and they have a culture that really embraces the new principles and they can move forward and be successful without our involvement in the long term.

It’ll be different for every manufacturer location. It could be performance for, or reliability for that supplier and so on and so forth. Typically it’s five or six of them. And once you complete that evaluation, what you’re going to find is you’re going to reveal, you know, areas for improvement in your supply chain. And in order for you to prevent that interruption and achieve that continuity, you have to address those. That could be sourcing strategies or inventory management strategies or even purchasing strategies that you would have to improve.

So that’s where I would start and then create a plan for that. So in other words, if there’s some disruption in our supply chain that will interrupt our business, we have a plan for it so that, that interruption affects us as little as possible.

We’re going to help you improve your profit margins and we’re going to do it. We’re not going to do it out of thin air. We’re going to go and improve your operational execution. That’s what it boils down to in your execution. Could be because your setups or your processes are not set up correctly, or maybe you don’t have the right people to execute them correctly.

And I’ll give you an example. We were recently working with this manufacturer and we were working actually have problems both ways, people problems and process problems. And so we started working on the processes and the processes started to improve, but they had improved marginally. Unfortunately, we ended up having to replace some of the leaders and as soon as we put the right person, imagine what happened, the efficiency, the profitability took off because now we had the full formula.

We had the right person. We had the right process.

And you know what a lot of companies fail to realize is that the talent may be sitting in your backyard. You may have the people in there. And so what I’ve seen most or quite a few companies do successfully. They find what talent do we have internally that we could maybe elevate and bridge that gap.

And you mentioned immigration, right. As you know, if you go into manufacturing, there’s a lot of ESL type of workers right. But they’re good. They have a good work ethic and you talk to them, you can even have a good laugh with them. But but there’s a barrier and that’s the language. Well, what if you invest in language skills or training for these workers and all of a sudden you have somebody that’s already in tune, that’s within your culture and you like them.

And you know, they have a good work ethic. There’s also, you know, the work environments that are out there. A lot of times, you know, we walk through manufacturing companies and it’s not an environment where people feel good, People feel like it’s toxic. And I know that’s a word that’s being thrown around, but it’s unhealthy. You don’t feel like when you know, it’s Sunday afternoon and you’re thinking, I got to get to work tomorrow.

And that’s not a good feeling that that something’s not right. And so that’s another area where manufacturers can compete if you create the right culture. And the funny thing, Lou, is that you don’t need capital investment for this. You have full control of it. And if you do it, it goes so far and in keeping your employees.

I recently was talking to two with a group of workers at this client, and they said some people left and they were saying, you know, the pasture is not always green. I’ll left for more money. And and now I miss you guys and I miss our environment, and I’m not really liking what I’m doing. So you give people a second thought or give them a reason to think twice about moving.

And that puts you in a better position to retain the talent. And then I’ll mention a couple last ones. Automation is an option we’re seeing it more and more technology’s evolving. So there’s one. And then the last one would be you can become more efficient, right? If you become more efficient, you can reduce the amount of labor through attrition.

You may not absorb additional labor. What I don’t advocate, though, is to purposely trying to cut down on labor so you can displace people and cut jobs. That’s of course, not a strategy that’s very employee friendly.

And then you just bring new people at the top every day all the time. We also look at turnover. Of course, if your turnover is above the industry average, again, that that could be a signal that either the leaders are not creating a right environment or there’s something that people are not, you know, satisfied with the work environment.

So if you have poor flow, if you’re wasting time, if you’re scrapping parts, all that, all of that, we go after all that. The second thing we do is focus on your people. And what we do is we focus on developing your talent internally so that when we disengage, you have the foundation there to be successful. And so we look at it in two ways.

You’re going to have people management skills. For example, knowing how do we a good leader that holds people accountable, that delegates well, that knows how to do real coaching as opposed to just managing people through authority and power. The other aspect of people that we look at is just basic operations management, right? Functioning through data as opposed to opinion or whatever happened 20 years ago.

Let’s let’s get the facts and let’s solve the problems. Third area is giving you a framework to cascade your strategy. So a lot of manufacturers, they have a plan. They want to get from point A to point B, but they don’t always know how to articulate that. And furthermore, they don’t always know how to engage the entire organization that so that everybody has the same priorities and everybody’s pulling in the same direction.

And then lastly, the last area that we work on its own culture and this is we were just talking about that a second ago, right? We culture always say this culture seems like this buzzword that’s out there and we try to make it very, very tangible. I have a lot of passion for this because in my work in corporate America, I experience good and really bad cultures.

And to that to the point that it affected my physical health because it was so stressful. And so we work to help leaders, leadership teams be intentional about the type of culture that they want to create. I help. I tell them, basically we’re going to imprint your collective DNA on this culture, and then you’re going to put it out into your entire organization, and we’re going to put filters throughout your entire human systems so that you attract the right people that fit your culture.

You onboard them, right? So it’s very clear what the culture is and the people that are already in here that don’t fit that culture get the message so that they either shape up or get out. And I know that sounds harsh, but unfortunately, I find that that’s how that’s the best way to do it. Because if you allow those bad apples to linger, you’re just doing a disservice to yourself and all the people in the organization.

And every day we’re going to display that. And so what I ask leaders is come together. Let’s find that overlap and let’s make that very visible and tangible so that whenever anyone steps in and they don’t subscribe to that, it’ll all it’ll almost sting you like you’re saying, Oh wow, I don’t fit well here. I don’t like this like I don’t like people here are highly accountable.

I’m deflector. Okay. I’m not going to sit well here because they’re going to bring it to me and they’re going to hold me accountable. I got to get out of here. That’s what culture is to me, and that’s the the power that a lot of companies fail to leverage. And it’s very inexpensive. All you have to do is work through your your differences with your leaders, with your peers, and then hone that message in and then put it to work.

So that’s what we do for culture. Hopefully that answers your question.

I that’s what I said. It’s a fuzzy word that’s out there. But go ask somebody, okay, And how do you put it in place and how do you bring it to bring it to life? It’s not it’s not that easy. And we try to make it very tangible very quickly.

But if you go and do it, you grow, you learn, you own it, you’re proud of it, and we both win.

So they know they I’ve seen I’ve interacted with clients where the people are saying, finally we’re seeing some change. We’ve been asking for this for forever. And and you just, you know, empower them and they’ll come up with solutions you’ll never think about. It’s it’s that’s part of why I enjoy the work we do because I know that consultants have can have a negative stigma in some people’s eyes, but when you get to collaborate with people and if you see up here it’s effective solutions lasting results, effective solutions, it’s our belief, don’t come from us.

It comes from the collaboration of the client and us. And the lasting results come from the client ownership and buy in and then they sustain it. And that comes from from internal.

If we could leave a link on the notes for the show so listeners feel.

We have it for other industries as well, but basically once you click here in manufacturing, it’ll ask you several questions, ten questions to be exact. It will ask you about your customer retention. You basically pick one, then it will ask you about your scrap, your delivery rate and so on and so forth. And then at the end, once you put your email, it’ll give you a report that basically shares benchmarks.

It gives you feedback as to where you stand. And this is something that you can start sharing with your people to get buy in, to actually drive change, because sometimes that’s what we need to give people. We need to give people actual tangible feedback so they can start opening their eyes to the reality that they may need to change.