Right about now, you are probably wishing the holiday season had only 12 days. Counting Saturdays and the November run-up to Turkey Day, the 2021 season is more like 45 days – and that’s if you don’t include October! Somehow, it always seems even longer.
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.
Assuming we can have more traditional family gatherings next year, 2022 could be even more intense.
While you probably spent too much time working IN the business this holiday season, now is the time to plan to work ON the business, like we talked about in the October Slippery Rock (see SlipperyRockGazette.net archives for the October edition).
To help you with this, I am going to provide 12 articles over the next 12 months of 2022 to challenge you to identify and improve specific aspects of your business. These articles will be published here on my website, and in the Slippery Rock Gazette over the course of 2022. Check out the titles in the above illustration.
I’ve run a fab shop, so I know what it’s like to be in the middle of this firefight. I also know this is the best time to start thinking about how you can avoid the same chaos for the 2022 holiday season. I look forward to helping you on that journey.