What About the Vermin Problem

How well is your company doing? Are you employing the best business practices and doing them well? Then you are doing good things and are well on the way to success. Or, are you and your employees failing to own up to problems and neglecting to fix them? Then you need to make changes before the business becomes a disaster. Worst of all, is there a lack of honesty, correctness, poor incentives you cannot afford, and poor communication inside and outside of the company? If any of these ugly things are true, you are in big trouble. The stories are real. What you learn and apply will determine your success or failure.

How well is your company doing? Are you employing the best business practices and doing them well? Is the company committed to its ongoing success? Have you built good relationships with your associates? Are you trusted in your business dealings? And are you as agile as the top performers are? Then you are doing good things and are well on the way to success. Or, are you and your employees failing to own up to problems and neglecting to fix them? Is change passing you by and your competitors are gaining or surpassing you? Does your company encourage performance responsibility and accountability? How are decisions made? Are they usually bad and made repeatedly? Then you are on a bad course and need to make changes before the business becomes a disaster. Worst of all, is there a lack of honesty about how things are going? Are you not owning up to your problems and issues, because that is the way things are done here? How correct are you about knowing what the real problems and issues are? Or are you willing to get other viewpoints and pay attention to them? Are you properly incentivizing people or paying out money that you cannot afford to? Most of all, how good is your communication inside and outside of the company? Do people know what needs to be done and what their roles are? If any of these ugly things are true, you are in big trouble. Peter Christian has worked for and with many companies throughout his 40-year career. He was an executive and trusted business adviser. He has seen businesses succeed or fail. Each category can produce good, bad or ugly results. It all depends upon their utilization and application. The stories are real. Who did or is doing them doesn't matter. What does matter is what to do, how to do it, and why it should be done. It is a matter of success or failure, the choice is yours.

Peter Christian was a founding partner and president of Enterprise Systems Partners Inc. (espi), a preeminent business consulting company in Pennsylvania's Lehigh Valley. He has worked with more than 300 clients throughout the United States in the areas of Manufacturing Improvements, Information System selection and implementation, and Project and Product Management. He has leveraged more than 40 years of corporate experience and knowledge to provide a proven record of accomplishments in Operational Strategic Planning, Continuous Improvement, Lean Manufacturing, Facility Planning, and Supply Chain. His efforts have collectively realized millions of dollars in cost reductions and improved profits for companies, while adding and retaining thousands of jobs. Prior to espi, Peter was an executive director at Crayola®® Corporation. He held director positions in Engineering, Quality, Operations, and Research and Development, and played an instrumental part in the company's growth of 700% in a15-year span. Peter is now writing articles and this book to share his experiences with others. In this way he hopes others will learn what to do and — as importantly what not to do in running their businesses. He consults to small companies and will be ais a college instructor in business. Peter holds a B.S. in Industrial Engineering from Rutgers University, and an M.S. in Industrial Engineering from Lehigh University. He is a certified Jonah with the Goldratt Institute and in Senior Project Management with the American Management Association. He has been a guest lecturer at Lehigh University's Industrial and Systems Engineering Department and an adjunct instructor at Northampton County Community College. He has been published in IIE Magazine, Industrial Management Magazine, the Packaging Journal, the ASQC Journal, IIE Solutions, Design-2-Part, and Consulting Magazine.