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38 SMT007 MAGAZINE I AUGUST 2024 cesses are not robust then implementing ERP soware will most likely make internal con- fusion worse, meaning that you may just have spent a lot of money automating chaos. 2. Looking for the Superhero Another common mistake is to look for a brilliant operations manager or general man- ager who will come in and put everything right. Sometimes, you might get lucky, but usually, "the squeeze" eats managers for lunch. No leader or manager, no matter how good they may be, is a magic bullet solution for more deeply rooted and foundational problems. We know businesses that have changed operations managers 10 times in 10 years. Unless you live in the world of Marvel or DC, there are no such things as superheroes. Soon, you will see your brilliant, highly paid executive as part of the problem, not part of the solution, and start looking for a new superhero. 3. Buying the Big Machine That Goes Faster Maybe if you could buy the latest piece of technology that produces twice as fast and requires half the labor, then you would improve your costs and margins. is looks good on paper, but the problem with "the big machine" is that it usually produces dou- ble the inventory, costs double the amount to run and maintain, and does not fix the underly- ing process and people problems in your busi- ness. Too oen, growing manufacturing busi- nesses buy new machines without thoroughly understanding the return on investment. ey saddle themselves with a lot of debt and cost, making "the squeeze" much worse. en your competitor buys the big machine that goes even faster, and any cost savings you gained through automation just get passed on to the customer. 4. Giving the Problem to Someone Else Also known as outsourcing, this approach seemed like a pretty good strategy over the past 20 years—until it wasn't. Hiring someone in the developing world to make your prod- uct might seem like a good idea until you find a quality issue and have three months' worth of stock in the warehouse or on the water and cannot get supply at all, or your supplier steals your intellectual property. When you source from offshore, your unit costs might be lower, but you will have to fund more inven- tory, sacrifice flexibility to meet customer needs, and increase your exposure to the risks of shortages and quality issues. at's not to mention wars, pandemics, and currency fluc- tuations. 5. A Bigger Factory Most businesses feeling "the squeeze" are also squeezed for space. If only they had a bigger factory, they could spread out and get better flow. However, in most factories we visit, less than 50% of the space is used pro- ductively. Instead, we see factories filled with work-in-progress, crisscrossed by a verita- ble freeway system of forkli aisles and piles of waste everywhere. e bigger factory just means that this mess gets spread out further, giving staff further to walk and forklis further to drive. Without the right thinking, a bigger factory can be less efficient than a smaller fac- tory. en you have the extra rent and building costs that all that bigger space involves. Figure 2: Buying a new machine might speed up your manufacturing process, but it could also cause operational mistakes later on.