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Three steps to guide your use of technology in 2008.
Small Business Tech
By James E. Gaskin, Network World, 01/10/08
A few readers have asked me questions about the last few newsletters and
blogs concerning how to choose technology. After mulling it over and answering
e-mails, I decided my seven word slogan "Define Your Process Then Pick Your
Tools" can be shortened to three words: Task, Process, Tools. Isn't that
how small businesses operate, by doing more with less? Seven down to three
certainly sounds like less, and I think it does more.
Let me define what I mean by each term so we're on the same page. "Task"
is a better term than job, because a job consists of many tasks. For instance,
the job description may be shipping and receiving clerk. That description
includes a great many tasks. The job at hand may be to accept a new shipment of
widgets needed for an assembly process and future sale. Inside that description
lurks many tasks.
Second, "Process" means a well-thought out series of steps
needed to reach a specified goal. If you need widgets for assembly, the
assembly "process" defines exactly how and where to install those
widgets. You can't throw all the parts of the final assembly into a box, shake
them up and hope they assemble themselves while tumbling about. The steps
showing how to combine the materials into a final product define exactly and in
precise order every step of the process.
Finally, "Tools" means the technology used to support the
defined process. Many times the technology requires skilled handling by trained
employees to make things work out properly. Other times, tools may be a series
of steps learned through training and repetition and not a computer.
Let's watch Steve the Shipping Clerk receive a box of widgets and see what
tasks are involved. As soon as Steve opens the box, we have a task. Do the
contents of the box match the purchase order?
The task list for accepting the widgets can be long. Did you order widgets?
Are the right number of widgets in the box? Are they the right color? Are all
other physical characteristics correct?
Each task will have its own distinct process, but they'll all be similar.
Count the widgets, check the purchase order, mark whether accurate or not.
Check the widget color, and the color ordered.
New processes become important as the widgets continue their march through
the system. Mark the purchase order as filled completely or partially. Place
the widgets into the inventory system. Maybe even alert sales and marketing the
long-awaited widgets have arrived so they can work to increase orders. Lots of
processes needed to fulfill the tasks.
Finally, the tools can be technology or not, but technology tends to be
faster and more accurate. Steve may go to a computer terminal and search for
the purchase order based on the purchase order number referenced on the widget
packing slip. Or Steve may go to a file cabinet and look through a batch of
paper purchase orders to find the right page. Which will be used depends on the
process and the technology level of the company.
Steve may have a scanner tied to a document management program that reads
certain sections of the packing slip and reconciles the information with the
appropriate purchase order or orders. Such software exists, but has to be
trained to know where to look on the scanned document. But there are many tools
that may be involved in widget acceptance, from a terminal in Steve's area to a
full document management program and workflow system.
We're assuming there's a computer system with the purchase order online,
but there may not be. Steve may start pawing through that file cabinet looking
for the purchase order. Heaven help Steve if the packing list doesn't reference
the purchase order, and he has to search manually through all the open purchase
orders to find the right one. A good tool for that situation may be a software
search screen in the accounting or Enterprise Resource Planning system that
allows you to search for items listed on purchase orders.
One seemingly simple job for Steve; many complicated processes that must be
defined to help Steve be accurate. Personally, I believe an accounting system
providing purchase orders, inventory levels, and reconciliation of received
goods against outstanding purchase orders will pay for itself in saving Steve
time and his company the potential for missed process steps if Steve does all
this manually. Of course, I'm in the computer business, so I tend to think
computers are necessary.
Yet the level of technology invested to accept widgets depends on your
level of comfort, not mine. If you only get one box of widgets per week, the
computer technology may be better applied to some other area (increasing sales
might be a good place, since you're obviously not making many products with
those widgets). Steve may be fine with a small file cabinet, while Sammy in
Sales needs a better way to convert the prospects delivered by Monty in
Marketing into paying widget customers. But that's another technology tale for
another day.
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