Without Consistent Quality Nothing Else Matters

I've been working with some customers to find new and different ways to measure their business.  Some would call this business intelligence.  With the right tools to gather information and right analytical methods interesting trends can be tracked and key performance indicators (KPI's) developed to measure the pulse of your business.  These analytical tools can help you make more informed decisions to become more profitable, competitive and to weather the storm of the changes affecting the industry.

One thing that has caught me off guard is the impact that poor quality is having on reprographers businesses.  If you are loosing face with your customers because of poor quality there is nothing more important to measure.  This impacts your profitability.  It affects your ability to retain customers, and your ability to attract new customers.

Advances in design technology are only increase the probability of errors.  To get out of this vicious cycle companies must document their workflows, set up systems to track errors, engage employees to find the root cause of the errors, and make adjustments to the workflow to ensure these errors are eliminated or minimized in the future.