What UCEC Can Learn from Boeing and Birds

By Mark Inboden

At UCEC, we’re always looking for ways to form best practices that benefit our business, and in turn, bring added value and service for our customers.

This month, Boeing posted a great video to YouTube about their SAVE initiative that studied bird flight patterns and ultimately resulted in a software program to reduce fuel burn.

We put a lot of thought into reducing our “fuel burn” here at UCEC. In business, friction can pop up in a myriad of places. If you feel like you’re running into a headwind every day, chances are, there’s friction that can be eliminated from your business processes.

Here are six questions to ask to reduce friction on your team or business:

• Does your team or company have a common goal or purpose for what it does?

• What process or procedures can you eliminate or slim down to create greater efficiencies? 

• What processes take 10 steps when eight would be better?

• Do you have repetitive checklists where two people are checking the same thing?

• Ask your team: what processes do you see that we could eliminate to save on costs, time or labor?

• What office procedures can we change to create efficient processes? (This could be simple things such as “All documents must be handed off in PDF format.”)

A smooth-running team doesn’t happen by accident. By taking steps to analyze what processes and procedures your business performs every day, opportunities for friction can be eliminated. With your “fuel burn” reduced, your business can look forward to increased production, decreased order times, less errors and increased revenue.

Mark is the President and CEO of UCEC.