Valuable for Manufacturers
I recently had an opportunity to review the W5Templates data management tool www.W5Templates.com. Recognizing that W5Templates started life as a CRM database tool, I didn’t really expect to find strong applications for the manufacturing community beyond project task management. However, after just a short time, I realized three or four specific ways that the functionality within W5Templates could add good value for a manufacturer.
The tool itself is simple and required little training to find my way through it. The flexibility to rename and reorder the columns and cells was nice and it permitted creation of a scorecard type dashboard in a very short time. Users with a variety of Excel skill levels should have little problem in becoming proficient with the interface.
The applications of the W5Templates are truly value-adding for manufacturers and any other businesses governed by a quality system and for those seeking continuous improvement as a cultural staple. Here are a few thoughts on one way to utilize the tool in these businesses.
Customer Complaint/Comment Tracking and Documentation. No business wants to receive complaints, but it is a reality of being tuned in to listening to your customers. The benefits that can come from customers’ complaints or comments are many. Building trust and loyalty through timely follow up, maintaining compliance to quality and regulatory requirements, and ensuring that customer feedback is an input to future product and service designs are just a few of the great outcomes from a robust customer feedback system. The W5Templates is a suitable platform within which to capture the detailed customer complaint or feedback at the time of contact. Customer name, call date, specific feedback, their expected response, defined actions, assignee(s) for actions and target completion dates are all things that can be captured in W5Templates. Then follow up status and overall status can be added as the actions are worked. It also can be used as a high level tracking tool for the complaint system itself. All customer facing employees could have access to the tool to keep it up to date.
Eric Kulikowski is a professional Coach, mentor and powerful speaker in his private practice Dare To Be Amazing, LLC. His primary role is in helping business leaders and owners make change and continuous improvement possible. Eric focuses on topics including workplace culture, leadership excellence, change leadership, employee engagement, continuous improvement, lean processes and personal goal acceleration. His passion is to help manufacturing leaders succeed in today’s chaos. And through this work his clients truly Dare to be Amazing. Prior to founding Dare To Be Amazing, Eric spent almost 30 years in product development and operations leadership positions in several high growth manufacturing businesses. On a platform of employee engagement and continuous improvement, two factories under Eric's leadership have been designated as North American Plant of the Year in 2011 and a North American Best Plant in 2009 by Assembly Magazine and Industry Week, respectively. Eric earned a bachelor’s degree in Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering from the University of Dayton and has completed graduate studies in business management at both Carnegie Mellon University and Stanford University.