The start of a new year is always a good time to focus on how you can make your business more efficient and profitable. At Tribute, Inc., we are focusing on our company-wide business processes using Lean manufacturing principles. What does it mean to be Lean for Tribute? It’s about improving work flow through the elimination of waste: wasted time, wasted motion, wasted production.

We’ve tackled the support department and instituted changes that will benefit our customers through more efficient processes that will enable our staff to take calls more quickly and close calls much faster. And we are now in the process of re-structuring the programming and sales departments. We’re also focusing on processes that ensure effective communication and cooperation between functional areas. Having an efficient and maximized workflow is always important to business, but never more so than in this economy.

There are many ways to eliminate waste and improve work flow for distributors and an analysis of your company’s business processes utilizing the principles of Lean Manufacturing is a great way to start. We’ve attached an article by William Atkinson of Purchasing.com illustrating how Carl Zeiss, a manufacturer and distributor of vision products, saved a significant chunk of change by focusing on just three aspects in their distribution center:

1) Improving work flow by optimizing the warehouse layout
2) Eliminating waste by cutting time and steps out of employee work processes and
3) Improving the receiving process by working with suppliers.

Click here for the full article