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"I've always wondered why my competitors seem to be maintaining their equipment and vehicles better than I can afford to. I thought I was just more careful with my money. Last week the sales rep for the biggest supplier of raw materials to the industry let slip that others take an average of 18 hours to complete a house lot of product. It takes us 36 hours, so we are clearly doing something wrong. Why are we so much slower? Where is the best place to start fixing this problem?"

This problem is basically one of productivity. Productivity is a measure of how much is produced, by a given number of people or resources over a period of time. Productivity can be improved by either producing more, using less people, or making things faster, or some combination of these. This means ensuring the team have the right resources and a minimum of bottlenecks in the system. They also need to have the right skills and attitudes to achieve what the business needs.

Finally, they need to be rewarded appropriately for the behaviour and outcomes you want to see. These elements of workflow design and people management need to be thoroughly reviewed, and improved as an entire process: there is no point in improving one area in isolation. Also, appropriate measures need to be put in pace to ensure that results are improving.

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