ATRADITION OFqUALITY

Go with the flow!

ffevtNc RETuRNED pnon back-to-back events, including the NAWLA Traders Iltvtarket. with continued signs of the industry being upbeat, perhaps now is a good time to finally recognize the industry upturn. Yes, it's not where we would all want it, but we have seen the turn of a very deep curve and are positioned to start the growth that we all have been waiting for. It's good to see smiley faces again. While 2013 will be up (although maybe not quite to economic forecasts), 2014 should head even further north. While the industry will still have its ups and downs and growth will bring its own issues, it will be a much better place.

As business starts to grow again, we are all probably feeling a bit stressed as we likely have 50Vo less staff around us now compared to pre-recession. As the market grows again and companies still are reluctant to hire, this is perhaps the time to review how we as individuals are performing and measure how productive we really are. The reality is that many of us waste a good part of our working day, which has grown substantially worse withcell phone and Internet usage in the office.

So the question as we look at our day is where can we save time to cut costs, improve productivity, and, most importantly, add value to our companies? Imagine that you are a systems analyst analyzing yourself. How do you really spend your day? If we're truly honest, I suspect most of us are wasting25To ot more of every day.

If you start by breaking time into minutes, how many minutes did you spend reading emails? Answering them? Deleting? Tweeting? Facebooking? Making phone calls? Actually, my questions are not how many minutes did you spend on all the above for business reasons, but for personal reasons. How much time did you take from your company, which is paying you to be productive, during working hours? Now add to that the long lunch hour, the late arrival, chilchatting in the hallway, waiting for meetings to start, and you can easily see the time lost before you even start to analyze real work.

In some companies there are processes that haven't changed for ever. Think about a nut and a bolt. How many turns does it take to get to the final quarter torque to tighten it? The reality is you may turn the bolt 10 times, yet that last turn is the only one that adds real value. So how do you reduce the other nine turns to save time and increase productivity? It is the same with what we do every day in the office or in the plant. If we can be honest with ourselves, how many of these turns could be eliminated with not one iota of difference to the end result?

How much time do we spend looking for things because we are not well organized? How much "stuff' do we hold on to? How is our desk organized? How much time is lost due to multi-tasking and getting distracted? I know for me that the technology in our company always seems to be behind where it needs to be, regardless of how we tryto improve it.How much time is lost in unproductive meetings (even waiting for them to start)? How often does the printer run put of paper?

For me, the secret to higher productivity is to finish one task and flowto the next one-unlike this month's column, which has taken four attempts to finish. Now if I could only practice what I preach!

To all our readers, much thanks for your loyal support to our publications. To our advertisers who loyally choose us, which allows us to publish each and every month, a BIG thank you. My big wish to all is that you have a wonderful, happy and healthy holiday season and that you get to enjoy it. See vou next vear on our travels.

Alan Oakes, Publisher ajoakes@aol.com