If you had a water tank, which would be the bigger problem:
The bigger problem is the one that is causing you to lose the most water.
Now, consider the analogy that the tank of water is the time of you and your employees. My question to you is this:
What is taking the most time from you and your workers?
In trying to identify areas for improvement, it is easy to concentrate on a single action that takes lots of time. For example. we might identify a certain task that takes 30 minutes each day. That would correspond to a water tank with one large hole. At the some time, your employee may be taking one minute to perform a certain task 30 times a day. That would correspond to a water tank with many small leaks.
Both examples are taking 30 minutes per day, but the one that might seem more obvious to you is the single task that takes 30 minutes. However, that is not necessarily the one that is costing you the most time.
I don't know the specific tasks that are causing inefficiency at your business, but the quickest pathway to improved efficiency may be different than you imagine. If you were to take a stopwatch and add up the time taken by your employees on each individual task, you might find that repetitive tasks are costing you a lot of time. The other thing you might find is that the gaps between the end of one task and the start of another are also costing you a lot of time. How quickly are your employees moving from one task to the next?
Countertop fabrication is a business of repetitive tasks. Like many other businesses, you essentially do one set of steps over and over again. Don't be blind to the leaks in efficiency that happen many times a day in small increments. The losses from those leaks may be costing you much more than you imagine.
Now, consider the analogy that the tank of water is the time of you and your employees. My question to you is this:
What is taking the most time from you and your workers?
In trying to identify areas for improvement, it is easy to concentrate on a single action that takes lots of time. For example. we might identify a certain task that takes 30 minutes each day. That would correspond to a water tank with one large hole. At the some time, your employee may be taking one minute to perform a certain task 30 times a day. That would correspond to a water tank with many small leaks.
Both examples are taking 30 minutes per day, but the one that might seem more obvious to you is the single task that takes 30 minutes. However, that is not necessarily the one that is costing you the most time.
I don't know the specific tasks that are causing inefficiency at your business, but the quickest pathway to improved efficiency may be different than you imagine. If you were to take a stopwatch and add up the time taken by your employees on each individual task, you might find that repetitive tasks are costing you a lot of time. The other thing you might find is that the gaps between the end of one task and the start of another are also costing you a lot of time. How quickly are your employees moving from one task to the next?
Countertop fabrication is a business of repetitive tasks. Like many other businesses, you essentially do one set of steps over and over again. Don't be blind to the leaks in efficiency that happen many times a day in small increments. The losses from those leaks may be costing you much more than you imagine.