I hope you have a mission for why your manufacturing company exists, and that you have some kind of vision for what it should look like in a few short years to ensure you’re closer to accomplishing that mission.

Your business is somewhere right now. You haven’t accomplished the mission so where you are now is insufficient for where you intend to be.

That tells you that no matter where your company is right now, it has to be in a different place in a few months and an even better place 6 months after that, if you are to bring the vision to reality.

The question is “how?” What do you do to get from here to there?

Logical steps to take in moving from here to there are:

1)   If you don’t have clarity of why you’re in business – your mission – I suggest you work on that. It drives everything else. Without it, your organization is taking a random walk, which is hardly the foundation for building an enduring manufacturing business.

2)   Complete a hard-nosed assessment of where you are now on the important “chunks” of your business

3)   Complete a hard-nosed assessment of where you need to be in 6 – 24 months on those chunks

4)   Specify what those gaps mean

5)   Identify each considered change to close the gaps either foundational, or strategic. Prioritize the gaps in terms of reduced risk or requirement to move forward, and then fold that into your operating improvement and strategic plans.

None of these steps is particularly easy, but you will become better with practice.

You know how I’m going to close this podcast: Start now, and as always, Finish Strong.

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