| 1. Eliminate wasteEliminate reports, habits, | | | | profit-generating activities.Once the waste |
| products, duplicate input, and processes that | | | | reduction frees up money, time, labour, space and |
| waste time and money. These drain labor, money | | | | energy, invest part of the savings in continuous |
| and energy from the business.Two-thirds of | | | | improvement.Some of these continuous |
| products or services sold incur more costs to | | | | improvements are already in most company's |
| produce than they are sold for. These are a drain | | | | budgets. Equipment replacement (depreciation), |
| on profits. These losers can be reduced by either | | | | marketing, training and research and development |
| increasing prices, reducing direct costs incurred in | | | | are all current cost or expenditures to generate |
| producing the product or service, reducing | | | | future profits.An analysis of return on investment |
| overhead costs allocated to the products or | | | | of discretionary expenditures should find further |
| services, or discontinuance of selling of the | | | | areas where the investment will yield results. |
| product or service.Some of these profit robbing | | | | Investment should be made in a combination of |
| costs may be found through asking employees | | | | projects with short payback periods and those |
| for feedback on duplication of efforts, unused | | | | with high rates of return.Byron Lund is President |
| reports, and other wastes of time or money, or | | | | and CEO of Bizwiz Consulting Group Ltd., an |
| through cost accounting or other analysis | | | | international business analysis product developer |
| systems.Eliminating waste increases the amount | | | | and vendor which performs consulting services in |
| of space, labour, time, energy and money | | | | business analysis, improvements and turnarounds |
| available for other profit-making activities.2. | | | | in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. Further information is |
| Reinvest a portion of the savings in | | | | available at . |