Lean Thinking is a philosophy of “No Waste.” It calls for a hundred small improvements every day rather than a major overhaul once a year. It is a concept based on making systemwide improvements to bring your customer greater product...
In business, you have to be more competitive than ever to survive. For distributors, the question often arises: “How do I differentiate my business, especially in distribution costs, when my competitors and I have similar vehicles, fuel costs, and drivers,...
Safety as a process looks at the entire issue of safety within a business operation. As explained in my last column (“Safety—a Process, Not a Program,” CryoGas, May 2012, p. 48), while a safety program encourages compliance with safety standards,...
We all know that in the industrial gas business, safety is an issue of utmost importance and most distributors have a safety program. In working with distributors on improving their businesses, however, I have found that while a...
In the 45 years I have been active in the compressed gas business, our core assets—cylinders— have maintained the same look. The tools to market them, however, have been transformed. Sales representatives used to drive around industrial parks, knock on...
Value Stream Mapping (VSM) describes a process by charting the materials and information flow of a product or a service along a value chain. Part of Lean Thinking, VSM is a business practice that aims to eliminate waste. This processes was...
A process is an organized group of related activities that work together to transform one or more kinds of input into outputs that are of value to the customer. Within this organized group, activities are related, work toward a common...
The Specialty Gases segment is one of the few markets that has been resilient in this recession and represents an excellent growth path for the independent gas distributor. Critical to success in this marketplace is a professional and knowledgeable specialty gas...
This report, our fourth in a series of articles on activity based business analysis and performance for US gases and welding distributors, examines distribution costs and improving distribution efficiency through Activity Based Costing (ABC).
Manufacturing and selling highpurity specialty gases requires complex resources and represents a significant investment for industrial gas distributors.
