There are many articles around about how to optimize your value-creating processes: template, fabricate, and install. ...

 Would you like to be able to process 10% more square footage through your plant every day — without capital...

Excerpt from this article originally published in the 2Q2023 Issue of the ISFA's Countertops & Architectural...

Excerpt: Imagine you are in a 50-foot sailboat, 100 miles from shore, experiencing gale-force winds and 40-foot seas....

Predicting the future is always a challenge – ask any weatherman. The problem is, if we don’t know what the future...

You’ve poured your heart and your soul and your blood, sweat, and tears into your business for years, and recently you...

Economic signals are all over the map. Depending on who you ask, we are in for either a good old-fashioned recession...

We often think of good salespeople as those people who have charisma, great product knowledge, and the ability to hold...

Co-authored by Ed Young, Fabricator's Business Coach and  Tiffany Brooks, Sales Leadership Coach and Trainer with...

  There’s a Facebook post that has been making the rounds lately and starts with the line “I’m not ignoring you. ...

When hiring key managers for your stone business, stone experience should be the least important of your criteria....

  You’ve seen several articles on these pages over the years discussing and defining the management accounting...

Ed Young, Fabricators Coach Steve Brooks, Sales/Management Coach Do you follow up on all your quotes?  If not, you...

Everywhere we turn these days, it seems the headlines are all screaming “Recession Ahead”.  In various areas of the...

Are you frustrated with lack of consistently good results from your business? Are your employees a little too good at...

 One of the great things about this industry is that there are so many machine and technology and software and...

So, you’ve taken all the advice in our Slippery Rock Gazette articles for the past year, your business is running more...

Will you have a place to sit, or will you be “out’ of the game?  In the game of musical chairs, we have to guess...

Do you feel like your business is running you into the ground? Do you feel like you always have to be at the shop just...

Have you ever had a problem in your business and you took action to solve that problem only to find out several months...

Have you ever had a month when sales were strong, you worked harder than ever, yet your month-end Profit and Loss Statement (P&L) showed poor results? There can be lots of reasons for this.

Someone once asked me how to know if a business had grown too big for the owner to manage. I think the answer is, if you can’t get your business to generate consistently good results, or if you have management problems in your business that you don’t know how to resolve, the business may be outgrowing your ability to manage it.

Someone once asked me how to know if a business had grown too big for the owner to manage. I think the answer is, if you can’t get your business to generate consistently good results, or if you have management problems in your business that you don’t know how to resolve, the business may be outgrowing your ability to manage it.

Someone once asked me how to know if a business had grown too big for the owner to manage. I think the answer is, if you can’t get your business to generate consistently good results, or if you have management problems in your business that you don’t know how to resolve, the business may be outgrowing your ability to manage it.

In a growing economy, job growth outstrips the supply of good labor – and the effects of the pandemic have only made the situation harder to manage. So, it’s no surprise that everywhere I go and in every type of industry, companies are struggling to recruit and retain good people.

In a growing economy, job growth outstrips the supply of good labor – and the effects of the pandemic have only made the situation harder to manage. So, it’s no surprise that everywhere I go and in every type of industry, companies are struggling to recruit and retain good people.

What do you want from your business?
If you want January 2023 to feel much better than January 2022, if you want a better work experience, if you want less chaos and more sanity in your business – then you must change how you run our business.

What do you want from your business?
If you want January 2023 to feel much better than January 2022, if you want a better work experience, if you want less chaos and more sanity in your business – then you must change how you run our business.

What do you want from your business?
If you want January 2023 to feel much better than January 2022, if you want a better work experience, if you want less chaos and more sanity in your business – then you must change how you run our business.

If you’re like most fab shops, the holidays are beyond stressful. All the normal challenges of the rest of the year — last minute order changes, employee absenteeism, machine breakdowns, late material deliveries, site issues that impact template and/or install — these all get compressed into about 8 weeks of chaotic activity.

If you have implemented the recommendations that I have posted here and published in the Slippery Rock Gazette for the last year, then your business should be a cash-generating machine. You should be generating much more cash each day than you are burning. Life should be good!

In fact, life can be so good at this level that a lot of companies stop improving. They are really happy with where they are. They don’t think it can get any better. Yet, there is a whole other level of ‘better’ to be had for those who are willing to go for it…

Has your business has hit a certain size that it just can’t seem to grow beyond?

Have profits stagnated and you just can’t seem to move that needle?

Has the level of noise and chaos in your business reached a fever pitch and nothing you do seems to reduce it?

Do you find yourself working harder and harder and you still can’t keep up?

Then, you may be suffering from “working IN your business and not ON your business” syndrome.

You’ve seen lots of articles about how to optimize your value-creating processes: template, fabricate, and install. You see more articles on this part of the business because this is where the magic happens. This is where the value is created that your customers pay you for.

But what about sales and the front office?

So, what’s the difference between a good idea and a great idea?

Two companies decided to purchase and install their first CNC router. Company A installed the CNC, the shop is running well, and they are making more money than ever.

Company B struggled to install the CNC and is constantly having problems as a result. Jobs are running late. Customers are upset. Profits are taking a hit. Read this Blog to find out more…

If your business is not improving – increasing profit, decreasing remakes and callbacks, improving on time delivery, reducing stress and chaos – then, quite possibly, your business may be in the process of failing.

In working with many fabricators and other business owners to improve their businesses, it is very common to make good progress only to have things stall out. While there can be several reasons for this, the most common reason is the improvement process has run up against a Sacred Cow in the business.

In a growing economy, job growth outstrips the supply of good labor – and the effects of the pandemic have only made the situation harder to manage. So, it’s no surprise that everywhere I go and in every type of industry, companies are struggling to recruit and retain good people.

If the primary measure you use to evaluate the success of your fab shop is how many square feet produced, then chances are you are not making as much money as you should.

Your shop does not have an infinite amount of capacity to make money – it is limited. You can only get so many kitchens or so many square feet through your shop in a day. Even though your capacity is limited, there is always room to improve. So, the question is: Are you making all the money you can from your shop?

Could you use an additional 10% production capacity right now?  Would you like to be able to process 10% more square...

When I ask fabrication owners or managers:  How do you improve profit? - the most common answer is:  Reduce cost....

Short lead times are a tremendous competitive advantage.  Lower work-in-process (WIP) inventories directly correlate...

Production managers attack bottlenecks.  Since a bottleneck in the flow of a fabrication process limits the output of...

It seems everyone is struggling with this issue. In a growing economy, growth in jobs outstrips the supply of good...