Many business leaders fail to see the opportunities that an economic downturn provides. To take advantage of opportunities you first need to make a rapid assessment of your vulnerabilities and then move quickly to minimize them. Advantage can be gained by using process improvement tools to increase profitability and competitiveness:
- Drive out waste through Lean Sigma operations
Tools: value stream mapping, line balancing, kaizen to reduce direct and overhead labor - Customer Collaboration
Tools: customer segmentation, goal alignment, cycle time reduction, product line rationalization - Supplier Optimization
Tools: supplier & material consolidation, lead time reduction, product design-to-cost - Accelerate cash flow and aggressively manage working capital
Tools: inventory reduction, excess/slow moving/obsolete inventory analysis, safety stock tuning, cycle time reduction to reduce WIP, receivables and payables management - Increase Capacity
Tools: overall equipment effectiveness, theory of constraints, quick changeover, product family turnover analysis - Product Redesign
Tools: component substitution, design for six sigma, design for manufacturability, value engineering
Johann Carl Friedrich Gauss (1777-1855) seen here on a German 10 Deutsche Mark banknote was a mathematician, astronomer, scientist noted for least squares, the 
1. Ownership Rule – the person who first detects the problem is responsible for finding the root cause of the problem.
Recently read Edward R. Tufte’s 
When I first learned inventory planning the math was rather simple. On top of the cycle stock (expected demand during lead time) I would add a percentage or a number of days (or more likely weeks). If the lead time was 2 weeks I might carry 3 or 4 weeks. I soon learned that demand for some inventory items is more volatile than for others, and some suppliers less reliable than others. I’d rather have too much then not enough, and I’d never gotten in trouble for having a little too much.
