Is your office logically organised?
by Guest Author
Welcome back to those who have been on holiday until now.
For those of you STILL on holiday, Im not speaking to you!
As I mentioned just before Christmas, Shane and I bought a printing business based in Hope Island, called,Island Printing.
When we took over, there were no real systems or procedures to speak of. We set about to change that!
The first thing I had to do was learn about the printing business! I had to learn quickly! While the task seems daunting at first, it is amazing how quickly we can pick things up!
Before I could implement any systems I first had to learn how to do it the old fashioned way. It was painful! But I learned :)
Fortunately we took over during a quiet time, otherwise it would have been a mess! No real way of keep track of what was going on. The place was a mess.
The first thing I had to do was tidy up ... and no I dont mean ink and paper laying on the floor. The place looked clean, but it was just extremely unorganised.
So my first step was to move things around so it was arranged more logically. Everything needs a home, and where its home is should make sense!
For example, we do a lot of short run laminated A1 or A2 full colour posters. First you had to print the poster, then take the printed poster upstairs to laminate. After that the excess laminate has to be trimmed off ... and the only place to do that was on the front counter!
We moved the poster printer upstairs next to the laminator, and set up a work bench that is easily accessible for all trimming. Something really simple, but it is amazign how it takes someone from outside to see the obvious.
Of course we made hundreds of other similar changes too. Have a look at your work environment. What can you group together to minimise the distance you or your staff need to walk many times every day. Youd be amazed just how much more efficient you can be if things are logically arranged :)
Let me know what youve done to optimise your work space, Id love to hear from you!
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