Articles on operations.
Productising a service almost always starts with delivery. In most firms the expensive customisation is sitting somewhere else, and it is cheaper to fix.
Estimating is often the last thing a founder hands over, and the reason given is rarely the real one. The…
Aggregate forecast accuracy is the most comforting number in the board pack, and often the least informative. Here is what…
Holding more inventory while still running out is not a contradiction: it is the predictable result of managing stock as…
An unfilled vacancy is usually treated as a recruitment problem. The job description tells a different story, and it is…
Two numbers that look unrelated on the management report are governed by the same piece of arithmetic, and it is…
An approval gate that has never rejected anything is either a very good deterrent or a very expensive signature, and…
A month-end balance is one observation out of thirty, and it is reliably the least representative day in the month.
When customers pay in advance, the current account stops measuring performance and starts measuring obligation. The distinction matters most at…
Volume rebates feel like money found at year end. They are usually a pricing instrument the supplier controls, and they…
Everything here is free to read with an account, and always will be. What it cannot do is tell you which of these applies to your numbers, your market and your constraints. That is the work we do with clients.
