Rethinking Ways to Drive Efficiency in Your Business: Control What You Do Best and Outsource the Rest.

This past year has challenged all leaders to think differently about how we operate our various businesses.

One of the most significant focus areas for my leadership team and me was to find ways to increase our internal efficiencies by eliminating unnecessary work processes and subsequent costs without sacrificing the quality of our work or the safety standards we maintain in everything we do.

So, we streamlined work processes, implemented business intelligence (BI) dashboards, invested in smart technologies, renegotiated supplier contracts, and delayed nonessential capital expenditures – all smart and logical things to do.

However, the most important lesson I learned was to take a big step back and focus on what we really do best versus trying to control the entire work process from beginning to end, where we literally did everything. We looked at every stage of our work process and realized that we had a great opportunity to focus our internal operational efforts on what we do best and let our amazing partners, who are experts in their own areas, take on the rest.

One such area that gave us an eye-opening, “aha” moment was our tooling program. For over 100 years, the company had managed our tooling program internally, which required a fairly large labor pool and a robust repair and maintenance program and created many logistical challenges. After several months of careful analysis, we realized that we would save money, improve efficiencies, and streamline our labor needs by outsourcing the program entirely to a partner who does this for a living each and every day. And it didn’t even require a new supplier search. We had already been working with one of the best companies in the business helping us rent the occasional piece of equipment or tooling in our Cincinnati shop and regional job sites. So, we worked with our local partner, F&M MAFCO, and gave them a shot with one of our regional business units to prove out the model. Within six months, we expanded the model to another region, and we will monitor the program’s success and its potential for further expansion.

The perfect solution had been staring us in the face all along. We just could not see it because we were so used to controlling the entire work process since we had always done in that way for the past 100 years. And the answer was right in front of us.

As you look at your operational work processes, I urge you to take a step back and ask yourself a few questions.

1.      What are our core competencies? What do we do best?

2.      Operationally, what do we absolutely need to control? Where can we outsource?

3.      Who can do it better? Who does this for a living and can be more efficient and cost-effective without any negative impact on safety or quality?

4.      Do we have someone we can trust? If not, can we find someone who is the best in the business and test it out?

From there, prove it out and then gradually expand it. Keep your focus on what you do best, and let others help you reach your efficiency goals. Control what you need to control. Find a partner that can take on the rest for you. You never know, the answer may be right in front of you.