Our Philosophy

The Remington Group's Philosophy

The Four Key Issues

As we approach the millennium, there can be no doubt who is king in businesses that deliver goods - the customer. The demand of the customer for six sigma quality (both of the product and the delivery system), shorter lead times, innovative packaging and labeling, vendor management of inventories and competitive prices have become the imperative of financial success. Discovering the needs of the marketplace and commitment to delivery of customer needs are the easy part of the equation. Keeping the commitment on a day-in and day-out basis -- customer satisfaction -- is the challenge. Successful techniques of manufacturing operations management in the new reality are directly related to honoring the commitment to customer satisfaction.

The costs of manufacturing enterprises - those of "doing business" (variable costs) and of "being" in business (period costs) have bedeviled managers for much of the twentieth century. Past and present theories and fads for cost comprehension and management, notwithstanding, focus on being the low cost producer is still an imperative. Appropriate focus on the manufacturing enterprises' costs will be defined by the price in the market for products and in constant visibility of the activities that are the underlying cause of the organization's cost structure. Perhaps the watchwords in cost management in the new century will be activities and value. Concentration on activities, value and, resources will then drive competitive costs through resource allocation.

Having men and women whom you "trust and empower" instead of employees who just "work for you" is how the competitive manufacturing enterprise of the twenty-first century will be organized. The command and control approach to people management has been giving way to participatory management for the past quarter century. We now have experienced the power of collaboration among shop labor, technical staff, and supervision to dramatically improve operations. Whether through self directed work teams, pay for performance, gain sharing, or cellular organization, the factory of the future will have a flatter and more participative organization. The leadership challenge will be to define the organization structure and style, select the leaders, and let them achieve.

As markets re-define the manufacturing enterprise and globalization brings new opportunities, the strategy employed to furnish goods to customers must be periodically re-examined. With manufacturing as the umbrella core competency, strategies for manufacturing resource deployment, distribution, product sourcing, among many others, will be re-defined in the terms of the new and ever changing marketing environment. The death knell of "functional silo" management has been sounded and with it the isolation of manufacturing from the strategic management of the enterprise. Senior manufacturing executives and their staffs will no longer be seen only as managers of the factory operations, but will be known as key participants in business strategy

Back to top

Our Policy

The Remington Group is organized to address the manufacturing organization's need to effect change and implement improvements in operations. We do this by carefully identifying areas of significant opportunity with our client and by setting a specifically delineated scope of the operations improvement project for which we are engaged. We document the professional arrangements and consulting program for our engagement in a proposal letter before we begin our work.

Back to top