Improve your productivity

You’re part of an industry that contributes over 60% to New Zealand’s exports. That’s impressive stuff!  

You’re also likely competing with a good chunk of the overseas market. So to remain competitive, you need to keep improving the productivity of your business.

Basically, you want each area of activity in your business designed well to make sure they achieve better business outcomes with the same or fewer resources.  
  
Make health and safety front of mind. This way, you’ll keep your team safe, comply with health and safety rules and make your business a great place to work.  

With a little planning and maybe some outside help, you can find that happy balance of improving things without disrupting your daily business activities too much. 

Let’s face it – you’re busy! 

You’re flat out. You know improving productivity will increase the efficiency and effectiveness of your operations. And you’ll get to it. Fair call. 

But are you prioritising stuff so that you do get to it? “Busy” often wins over things like strategic improvements. Put improvements further up your list of priorities so you’ll make the time and effort to get to them.

Start with simple changes

Start small. You’ll be surprised at how simple changes can often result in highly efficient outcomes. Heaps of New Zealand businesses have improved their productivity by 10% and more by doing so. 

Imagine if you had an extra 10% capacity! You could throw some of it into more improvements, and then just keep that ball rolling.  

Consider getting someone else to help

You can’t have expertise across all areas of your business, so handing over some stuff to experts can be a life (and time) saver. 

Their expertise means they’re familiar with the latest and greatest. And these experts can carefully assess and advise on any changes to processes or technology to match your business goals. 

Where do you start? Here. With four of the top ways to improve productivity in your business. 

Measure, to get you from good to great 

You can’t improve it if you can’t measure it. Even turning up the heat on your toaster to make brekkie faster needs measurement. 

To identify processes that aren’t working and improve them, you need to:

• understand every step
• document them
• use relevant yardsticks to measure against (yep, that’s those KPIs: key performance indicators).

Measure only what’s relevant to your business and use the data to make sure decisions are accurate. Don’t rush it. Spend the time understanding what to measure now instead of changing things down the track.  

Try to avoid “analysis paralysis’ 

Remember – the goal is to make changes and improvements, not just measure processes. 

Go “next level” with your processes 

A great way to improve a process is to use one of the many methods out there, for example, lean manufacturing and SixSigma.  

In fact, lean manufacturing is one of the most popular methods in the world. There are plenty of specialists to help if your team needs that expertise or time to put these methods into practice. And some help is even government funded.  

Lean manufacturing 

Add a dash of digital tech 

New technologies offer massive wins for efficiency, quality and cost reductions. 

You’ve got things like: 

• 3D printing 
• artificial intelligence (AI) 
• Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) 
• robotics. 

To succeed, you’ll need to plan carefully, invest in developing your people’s skills, and take a strategic approach to integrating the tech. 
 
Industry 4.0 and strategic planning 
 
Training your staff 

Here’s more about digital tech in manufacturing 

In Focus: Industry 4.0 — Callaghan Innovation   

Digital and AI Whare — Callaghan Innovation

Take your team to new heights 

Getting your people up to speed with new things you bring into the business is super important for improving productivity.  

You’ll need to train them. Give them the skills, knowledge and confidence so they can adapt to new processes and handle new technologies. 

Consider investing in things like:

• continuous learning 
• training in other areas of your business, outside their roles 
• technology-specific programmes. 

You’ll get a confident workforce who know they’re valued and feel like they’re constantly learning. It’s a sure-fire way to get productivity gains and boost morale across your business. 

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