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“Successful installations involve companies that use this moment of change as an inflection point to review all the workflow processes of each employee affected by the change. Such a comprehensive and meticulous review is probably more important to improving the efficiency of the company than the technology itself.”
all over the United States and Canada, it is extremely common to find excellent employees using inefficient systems. Separating the evaluation of the system from the person who uses or cre- ated it is vital. Often times we must tip our hat and say, “Under the circumstances, with the resources available, this is an amaz- ingly intelligent way of making sure that you can handle the job you were given.” At the same time, the point of the review is to remove all of these factors and ask, “Given the resources now available and the task as it is now defined, what is the most ef- ficient way for this company to operate, position by position?” Sometimes this means moving responsibilities from one em- ployee to another. Sometimes this means telling a “special” cli- ent that they are going to have to adjust to a revised way of doing things. Sometimes it means removing a process that was developed to handle a “one in 10,000” event, but it adds labor or complexity to each transaction making it not worth the benefit. Against the pull to settle for inefficient systems, a good op-
erations manager must also resist the opposite urge to create a “perfect system.” In our first few years in business, we got a very high-profile client for whom we were determined to “bend over backwards.” Tis meant completely customizing many features to their every desire. Te result were myriad settings and many com- plicated logical steps. Our goal was to handle any possible scenar- io with the software. I will never forget what the owner relayed to me in a conversation we had several years after the implementa- tion: “In retrospect, I wish you would have told us that we couldn’t have our way and forced us to use the system as you had designed it, because we ended up creating a monster for ourselves.” No software or workflow system is good enough to remove
the need to have good employees who can make decisions and remember important information. In an attempt to realize the goal of having a system that a monkey could use, the result is ironically one which requires a rocket scientist to administer. It takes more time and effort to think this way, but the results can speak for themselves. n
Hinckley is the president of EasyBus, Inc., based out of Ballston Lake, N.Y. He can be contacted at
mhinckley@easybus.com.
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