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I do sometimes worry about the state of leadership these days I do believe, a substantial number of restaurant employees that take pride in their work, excel at service and believe that they serve the best damn fajitas this side of de Nile. Some do it because they have a righteous work ethic, some because of their innate sense of competition with each other, and still others, of a desire to just make other people happy.

Most restaurant employees exemplify the highest ideals, and elevate their performance because they want to, have to, or its simply how they pay the bills, maintain their friends, customers- and keep their jobs. However what happens in the corporate world, the economy takes a turn for the worse, some bad supplier prices are locked in, prices skyrocket, leadership changes, competition gets tougher. In addition to this the restaurants regional vice president sales are down and his salary is up, meaning he has been in the position for more then 5 years and thus all of a sudden incompetent and terminated. Where is the brilliance of replacing a seasoned top manager with someone less expensive, less experienced and in the need of justifying his/her salary to the chief and board themselves. This scenario then leads to the company deciding to, or are put into a position to, run the prices up pared with cutting corners, and raising additional funds from one area, to funnel into another. When this happens, it usually comes from the biggest operations costs: utilities, food and beverages, and the payroll. These areas affect us - the restaurant managers and employees.

Why mess with the restaurant managers and restaurant employees? Small increases in savings, multiplied times by many customers, by many units, result in piles of money based upon the chief bean counters projections. Did you really think that the chain restaurant upper management were going to give up their stock options, or job, or tee times in preparation for the fall charity fundraiser. A good sign that youre in this savings vortex is a company-wide, new-found awareness of utility waste. The temperature is warmer/cooler than it used to be, managers are bugging everybody about lighting and equipment turn on schedules, manager bonuses are re-structured based upon the increase in rolls of toilet paper used this year to date verses last. Not to worry. I would like to believe that these symptoms only last about a month or two tops.

You may notice menu or portion resizing, garnishes no longer being necessary, (I heard parsley futures will be hit hard this season) changes from linens and glassware to paper products, cleaning and armored car services - even doing away with those mints at the front desk that you swore that youd swear off of this New Years Resolution. A big labor crunch, cutting service levels to the bone and pushing heart-of-the-house crews to the limit, mean theres not much imagination behind this drive for the dollars. Shortcuts in cleaning regimen or training standards show that morals arent such a bargain anymore, and the leadership is willing to sacrifice the future for quick results. All of these measures lead to a lowering of standards once preached by the very same entities that now fear for their own personal money and continued employment. If they visit your locale, be very afraid. Theyre dangerous when its their own club membership on the butchers block.

So, when your guests start to complain, a cook, dishwasher or bartender walks out because of the increased workload, the climate control is whacked out and the boss has eaten all of the good painkillers from the first aid kit, (I recommend pain-aid it is loaded with caffeine) and you are suffering withdrawal symptoms due to an absence of reasonable standards. The companys current fear crisis is deemed more important than its once lofty mission and vision statement (because it is only for a short time until the economy bounces back).

A chain restaurant focused purely on cost cutting measure to please the investors for this quarter (Typically the path of least resistance) causes the restaurant employees and managers to bend, break or reinterpret the rules gradually, over a longer period of time. The companys money crunch then becomes much more rapid, and therefore, much more noticeable. Replacing quality experienced trained staff with cheaper becomes acceptable, accelerating the guests perception and reality of the lowered standards.

I do sometimes worry about the state of restaurant leadership these days I do believe, a substantial number of restaurant managers and employees that take pride in their work, excel at service and believe that they serve the best damn fajitas this side of de Nile. Some do it because they have a great work ethic, some because of their innate sense of competition with each other, and still others, of a desire to just make people happy.

Those that exemplify the highest ideals, elevate their performance because they have to, or its simply how they pay the bills, maintain friends and customers- and keep their job. but, as often happens in the corporate world, the economy takes a turn for the worse, some bad deals are done, prices skyrocket, leadership changes, competition gets tougher or the Vice President of Operations French Fry rebate check bounces. For whatever reason, companies decide to, or are put into a position to, run the prices up/cut corners, and raise additional funds from one area, in order to funnel into another. When this happens, it usually comes from the biggest operations costs: utilities, food and beverages, and the payroll. These areas affect us - the restaurant managers and employees.

Why mess with the restaurant managers and restaurant employees? Small increases in savings, multiplied times by many customers, by many units, result in piles of money based upon the chief bean counters projections. Did you really think that the chain restaurant upper management were going to give up their stock options, or job, or tee times in preparation for the fall charity fundraiser. A good sign that youre in this savings vortex is a company-wide, new-found awareness of utility waste. The temperature is warmer/cooler than it used to be, managers are bugging everybody about lighting and equipment turn on schedules, manager bonuses are re-structured based upon the increase in rolls of toilet paper used this year to date verses last. Not to worry. I would like to believe that these symptoms only last about a month or two tops.

You may notice menu or portion resizing, garnishes no longer being necessary, (I heard parsley futures will be hit hard this season) changes from linens and glassware to paper products, cleaning and armored car services - even doing away with those mints at the front desk that you swore that youd swear off of this New Years Resolution. A big labor crunch, cutting service levels to the bone and pushing heart-of-the-house crews to the limit, mean theres not much imagination behind this drive for the dollars. Shortcuts in cleaning regimen or training standards show that morals arent such a bargain anymore, and the leadership is willing to sacrifice the future for quick results. All of these measures lead to a lowering of standards once preached by the very same entities that now fear for their own personal money and continued employment. If they visit your locale, be very afraid. Theyre dangerous when its their own club membership on the butchers block.

So, when your guests start to complain, a cook, dishwasher or bartender walks out because of the increased workload, the climate control is whacked out and the boss has eaten all of the good painkillers from the first aid kit, (I recommend pain-aid it is loaded with caffeine) and you are suffering withdrawal symptoms due to an absence of reasonable standards. The companys current fear crisis is deemed more important than its once lofty mission and vision statement (because it is only for a short time until the economy bounces back).

A chain restaurant focused purely on cost cutting measure to please the investors for this quarter (Typically the path of least resistance) causes the restaurant employees and managers to bend, break or reinterpret the rules gradually, over a longer period of time. The companys money crunch then becomes much more rapid, and therefore, much more noticeable. Replacing quality experienced trained staff with cheaper becomes acceptable, accelerating the guests perception and reality of the lowered standards.

During periods of market slow down, the executive leadership of a venture is able to make choices about how they will react to the future, and the position where they would like to be once the economic down turn ease and the market begins to recover back to what it was before.

By altering their viewpoint and strategy planning to have a long term view instead of looking only at the production of a short term positive uptick to the profit statement, it is possible to grow a business even during tough economic times. A foundation to success in this area, however is that the people in charge are experienced leaders and are motivated to look beyond the immediate prospects and work toward positive change for the future. It goes without saying that if the company is in healthy before the recession begins, combined with good management during the period of recession, that business has a better chance of surviving the challenges with not only streamlined processes, but with a greater market share, due mainly to it stepping into the space left by companies who go out of business in the meantime.

The predisposition toward long term growth strategy needs to be a part of managerial thinking during times of plenty as well as times of hardship and needs to lead to the implementation of changes which will be beneficial over a period of economic cycles and not only from the short-term view. The ability to deal with recession in this way is the mark of true leadership abilities and the trademark of success.

The use of redundancy is an obvious example of knee-jerk reaction to company failures in a declining market. While it’s immediate effect is to release funding into the company which may be sorely needed, the long term effect is that once the recession passes, the company then needs to re-establish the knowledge and experience base that it has just downsized. Across-the-board axing of management positions may seem like the obvious thing to do, however it will be short-sighted in the long term vision.

It is worth considering that the wider social implications of major redundancies such as those that we are seeing in the international economy currently, actually makes a downturn last longer, as it affects the entire equilibrium of a country’s economic infrastructure.

It is far more prudent to reduce your cash flow by optimising processes than getting rid of workers, particularly if you want to grow during or immediately after a recession. This way you retain the human capital necessary to quickly and effectively respond to opportunities in the market.

The methodology brought in by consultants can usually help you identify low hanging fruit in this area, and the money thus freed up can be used to fund growth related activities such as buying your competitors stock or developing new market offerings.

The old saying of buy when the market is down is most applicable in this situation, and businesses should be preparing for this situation when the going is good.

People who have money always want to tell you how to get make money. The only problem is that they want you to pay them to get the information on how to get rich quick and become wealth. You probably already know how to become wealthy but just not following the guidelines.

Experienced investors know, probably through their own experience, that timing the market is impossible. The performance of the market over the course of the year is usually a result of a few very big days. It is impossible to know when these big days will occur, so the best thing to do is contract a internet data entry to be “in” the market at all times.

As an investor who wants to build wealth, you want to keep it simple. Experienced investors also know that 80% of mutual funds do not beat the market, which means you would be better off investing in a plain old index fund then with a with the majority of professional investors who get paid millions of dollars to manage a mutual fund.

Rich people want it to be obvious how much money the have or make. By being over-spenders they waste money by purchasing unnecessary, outrageous things just to help them create their image of being so rich.

It simply means you have to work hard. If your goal and purpose in life is to become wealthy and get rich quick, than you should follow those who have already become accomplished at it. The only way to be the best is to learn from the best.

Once investors realize they made too many costly mistakes and that the market can’t be timed be even professional investors, the slow and steady approach that guarantees wealth starts looking appealing.

Your business can transform your production line and revolutionize the speed and the accuracy in which you manufacture your products by taking advantage of robot automation. Within the past decade, robot industrial technology has made great strides. Engineers have designed new models that are compact and energy efficient in order to meet the diverse needs of the manufacturing community. If you have been thinking about integrating robotic components into your manufacturing plant there are helpful steps listed below that can guide you through the process.

The first step is to decide what your specific robot automation needs are. Think about the specific jobs that you would like to have done robotically and make a list of the specific tasks that you would like to place in the hands of robotic technology. Share this list with your robot industrial manufacturer.

Secondly, take a camera and a notepad into your plant and get together as much information as you possibly can about the area in which a specific function is performed. For instance, photo A is the area in which our products are sorted. The space measures out to be x amount of feet by x amount of feet. By providing this information to the manufacturer, they can decide which type of robot automation will be most effective in any given area. Since robots vary in size and shape a professional can guide you in deciding which model will be most suitable given your space constraints.

By completing this step you will help the manufacturer select a model that will be most efficient within any given space. The manufacturer can decide whether a ceiling mounted or a floor mounted model will be most suitable.

Now it is time to come up with a budget for the robotic integration. By furnishing the manufacturer a budget upfront they can work together with you in developing a plan that will provide you with the robot industrial technology that you need within your parameters.

After you express your needs to the manufacturer ask them for there personal opinion and suggestions for robotic integration. They will recommend specific models to perform your requested applications and explain to you the different specifications amongst the different models available.

After the equipment has been decided upon, ask the manufacturer to demonstrate how to operate and program the equipment that you purchased.

The more time that you take to carefully plan out your robotic integration and to communicate with the manufacturer, the easier and more affordable the entire process will be.

If you are thinking about psychometrics testing there are six rewards that they can help you with the recruiting process. Finding out who the right applicants are for the right job is the best thing that you can do. Everything you need to know can be found through a few easy tests which will enable you to match a candidate to the right position.

Pairing employees to the right positions can be extremely arduous and is what makes recruiting a tough job. Psychometrics emotional intelligence testing is the best thing you can do so you can have the most enlightenment about a personage. Tests like this allow you to match the right candidate to the right position and helps with decreasing turnover rates.

There are online personality assessments for recruiters which can help you determine what your goals are. Benchmarks can be determined through a simple profiling wizard. Finding the right candidates cannot be done until you know exactly what is it you want first.

It is a very difficult process to assess candidates. Psychometrics testing gives you the occasion to learn more about the candidate’s abilities by measuring their intelligence and personality levels. These online tests provide an easy and opportune way to obtain the inside story.

Another benefit of psychometrics emotional intelligence testing is that the information gathered from each of the candidates is organized in tables. The right candidates for specific positions can be generated by the computer system. This is a quick and easy way to gather a list of qualified applicants for positions and is very helpful.

Online personality assessment provide reporting methods which also allow you to get detailed information about specific candidates. This is an excellent way to pull information of specific candidates that seem right for the job to make the best determination of who is best suited for the position.

When interviewing people as a recruiter it is important to be in a position of knowledge to place the right person in a position. Performing psychometrics emotional intelligence testing on a candidate allows you to understand their abilities. This type of testing allows you to be clear on the candidate’s skills during the interview process.

The final reason why online personality assessments are the best choice for recruiters is that they allow you to make the best fit for a job. This means that the employer will have a lower turnover rate, you can make the most money off of the candidate, and the employer will be pleased with your skills to match a position. You will be more informed about the skills and abilities of the candidates before you make any decisions on hiring candidates.

There are many reasons that psychometrics testing is the best tool as a recruiter. This type of testing allows you to place employees in new jobs that are qualified, the right person for the job, and happy. A successful recruiter is someone who is successful placing the right people in the right positions by the use of assessments.

Business isn’t perfect, it’s actually very far from perfect. Every employer, I don’t care who it is, faces internal problems that include but aren’t limited to, employee differences, failure to meet company expectations and goals, and lack of productivity from employees. Sadly, these problems and many others usually come back to land on the shoulders of the organizations leadership team or upper managers. These issues have to be addressed by the leaders of the company to ensure that things don’t get further out of control.

If you are leader in your current company, you should really consider the following scenarios that I have put together to illustrate what kinds of problems you should be on the lookout for in the work place. Each of these problems can be resolved very easily with the right management training.

Attitude- Steve Johnson is an employee who radiates a lot of anger and always has a negative outlook on his job tasks that have been assigned to him. Not only does his negativity and anger affect his work, but it also affects his co-workers and others around him in the office. They too are starting to adopt his poor behavior and attitude. As his supervisor, you are very frustrated with him and have reached the end of your rope with others who he is influencing.

Communication- Sara Anderson has failed to show up for work for the last three days. The problem is, her managers have never enforced a strict policy about calling in sick for work, so she assumed that she could get away with a few days of not showing up for her shift or contacting her manager about missing work. She decides to come back, only when she wants to come back to work. She honestly believes that there will not by any repercussions when she is approached by her manager since there isn’t clear cut rule when it comes to be absent from work.

Productivity- Joe Boyer is a new employee with the firm and has been added to a team of veterans to the company. Being too busy with their own assignments and projects they are managing, they fail to train Joe properly. They believed that he would quickly pick things up and gain the knowledge he needed by watching them do their work. Suddenly, one of the veteran workers will be out of town for the next four to six weeks and you feel shorthanded.

Have you or your company every experienced any of these issues? Are your company policies ignored or challenged by the employees? Are your employees unclear about their duties or projects they are assigned? Are your employees motivated, or are simply there for a paycheck?

If you answered yes to one or more of these questions, you have a problem. The good news is, with the right management training, leaders and managers of your company can develop new skills that will better help them manage their teams and develop working environments where employees are empowered and engaged. This is important for a successful business.

Managing Performance is the function of measurement of advancement, of an administration, towards a sought-after goal. It is the measure, analysis and optimization of resources to supply a service to a level that has been agreed upon by both party’s. It focuses on the delivery of service.

The fundamental idea behind performance management is a operation through which the management joins the people, systems and schemes, to grow both strength and efficiency so to present the coveted results. Plainly put, the affirmation implies, doing the right things and doing the things correctly. That is, an up-and-coming establishment should include one system that integrates leadership, and the other that insists on attaining quality.

An effective performance management in an organization can attain leadership skills that can be increased alongside mental attitudes, interpersonal skills and behaviors. This is a principal prospect of managing performance as it helps in retaining and holding people who personify the underlying human capital of the organisations. as they are the ones responsible for the implementation of the strategic designs of the business enterprise.

It is exceedingly critical for a business concerns to have a secure, performance management. It should be able to engage the schemes, people and schemes actively, for the successful execution. This would also result in an increment in the gross sales and a better profitableness that would plausibly not be reachable, if the procedure was not implemented.

With an capable performance management, business concerns will flourish like ne’er before. It is an exceedingly critical operation of business management, that is used by directors of people, as an active tool, that is used by them to reach the objectives of the organisation.

Performance Management may be able to fulfill the following business objectives: The missing link between Dreams and outcomes: Now, commercial organizations are increasingly aware that it is ordinarily not their strategy but the combined effort and powers of their employees to apply the strategy that makes all the difference to their expanding business. So, it becomes the duty of top level directors to fill in the crack between the missing links of ambitions and results, by motivating their employees, through management of their performance.

To increase the potential of an organization, in order to accomplish its strategy, it is critical that the establishment grows and makes the potentialities of its employees. Competent individuals management is the only key to better the businesses performance.

The most principal function of Performance Management is to grow the strength of the employees. This should be done, in order to improve the performance of the business.

Managing Performance is linked up with paperwork, serious conversations and bureaucracy, and is consequently frequently put away as a chore no one wishes to do. Even So, Performance Management is a operation that involves people and directors, that use the process on a regular basis, to increase their strength towards the employer’s organization.

When to or when not to palletize? More companies are beginning to ask that question as freight costs increase. It was fairly standard to use pallets to mitigate handling costs even at the expense of freight costs, but that is beginning to be questioned now. Some companies are deciding it may not make sense. Here are some examples of why they decide not to palletize.

The reason many companies preferred using pallets is it became a soft handling alternative. Soft handling generates less product damage. Palletizing also speeds up loading and unloading while reducing damage in transit. Pallets replaced clamp trucks that were once considered rough on loads and resulted in high incidents of damage to goods.

But pallets chew up capacity in a truck. By eliminating them, companies like Frito Lay have often achieved numbers in the 90+% utilization of the water cube (the 100% utilization of capacity of the trailer would be when it was full of water). Frito has traditionally seen cube maximization as an important metric and key cost driver. All their salty snacks are hand loaded onto high-cube trailers. The one redeeming factor is that the cases Frito uses are relatively large and light.

You have to take into consideration the pallet weight when determining payload. By removing pallets, you can increase the weight of the product carried. For example, if you have 60 pallets, they weigh over 3,900 lbs and decrease that weight of product by 8%. In many cases, DC replenishment shipments can be more economically shipped without pallets. The extra labor costs associated with palletizing when they are received, are often calculated to be less than the freight savings.

Multiple handling is one of the costs associated with shipping on the floor (without pallets). How much labor is involved is dependent on technology. For example, slip sheets, where the product ships on a larger piece of plastic that is grabbed by a push-pull device and pulled onto the platens of the forklift, enables product to be handled quickly with only additional labor being invested if the product needs to be palletized for shipping (a customer requirement) or put onto racks for efficient storage. Hand stacking requires lots of labor, particularly if the case size is small.

You have to also take into consideration the cost of the pallets. There are many choices - disposable, rented, used, exchange programs. It doesn’t matter what you choose, but you do have to include the cost of pallets.

The decision to ship on or off a pallet is a consideration, and more and more Companies are factoring this into their decision making process as they review cost savings against the potential for damage.

If you need the expertise of the best in transportation consulting, go where the best of the best go: Transportation l Warehouse Optimization (TWO). Procter & Gamble - a long-term client since 1992 - along with other top Fortune 50 Companies are among their client list. They have saved them millions of dollars with transportation consulting solutions. Taking the long-term approach, they understand the industry, the market place and like good consultants do, keep the client as top priority. Contact them at www.TransportationOptimization.com today. While visiting their website, sign up for their exclusive free Truck Loading Manual that can SAVE YOU MONEY and offer you the perfect Operator Manual for truck operators. Transportation l Warehouse Optimization - Solutions that work. Solutions that save.

Companies have compensated for the lack of coordination of logistics activities in the supply chain. Inventories fill warehouses, trucks wait for loads, customers get lower fill rates and shareholders get less return as a result of gaps in software and methodology. This article explores gaps in the internal supply chain that cause inconsistency in what should be a smooth flow of information and materials.

Distribution is often the recipient of product it does not need to fulfill customer orders. Distribution managers are faced with the problem of where to put this product that has been pushed to them. Unfortunately, there are elements of this in many supply chain operations causing overflow space in large warehouses and incur transportation and handling costs shuffling the product to its new home.

In the sad but true category is the story of the pushy purchasing manager who got a promotion by getting a different bottle supplier for a filling plant. The supplier was miles away and unable to keep up, forcing the production lines to be scheduled based on what bottles could be delivered. This purchasing decision to switch suppliers, which is not uncommon, saved little and created a rift between manufacturing and purchasing while creating a dysfunctional supply chain with more of the wrong inventory filling hastily secured outside warehouse space.

Often the people negotiating with carrier are not the same people who, on a day-to-day basis, deal with tendering shipments on loading trucks. This generates higher logistics costs as, for example, the lowest priced carrier also provides equipment that cant haul as much weight as a modestly higher cost carrier with lightweight equipment.

And our last example of dysfunctional internal supply chain practices is the gap between the planning and execution. How often does a plant get blamed for cutting product from a shipment when they physically cant get it all on the truck? Often, it is the distribution planner on the order management system that makes the mistake not the plant. Without information on product stack-ability, an understanding of different states axle restrictions, they plan in such a way that it cant be executed. The cost to the supply chain can be large as customers are hurt.

The internal supply chain doesn’t have to be dysfunctional. There are easy ways to improve communications and create a linked internal supply chain. Reward everybody in the supply chain using the same set of metrics. In this way, purchasing prospers when manufacturing succeeds in lowering total product cost. Coordinating planning and execution requires planning systems to link to execution systems ” or better, use the same systems.

Optimizing the internal supply chain requires logistics systems that go far beyond the simple transaction-oriented WMS, TMS, or load builder. There are two categories of optimization systems that generate the biggest return: Distribution Master Scheduling and Vehicle Load Building. Distribution Master Scheduling generates optimized plans for optimizing all activities after production. Working in 10 minute increments, the capacity constrained system provides plans that make what is planned be what is executed. The same is true for Vehicle Load Building. This optimizer creates the shipment that fills out the load (weight/cube or both) and provides the warehouse with detailed pick lists and loading instructions to ensure everything fits legally and damage free.

If you need the expertise of the best in transportation consulting, go where the best of the best go: Transportation | Warehouse Optimization. T|WO already work with the best of the best. Procter & Gamble ” a long-term client since 1992 ” along with other top Fortune 50 Companies are among their client list. They have saved them millions of dollars with transportation consulting solutions. Taking the long-term approach, they understand the industry, the market place and like good consultants do, keep the client as top priority. Contact them at www.TransportationOptimization.com today. While visiting their website, sign up for their exclusive free Truck Loading Manual that can SAVE YOU MONEY and offer you the perfect Operator Manual for lift truck operators. Transportation | Warehouse Optimization - Solutions that work. Solutions that save.