"Why do we still pay Al Levi for ongoing consulting three years after we first started working together? Because I know how easy it would be to fall back into our old bad habits."
Steve Lowry, Owner
Before we did the Customized Operating Power! Manuals with Al, no one in our company knew what was expected of them. It was always,“You didn’t tell me that!” Now that has all changed – we’ve created the manuals and those are what we train on.There is no more “I didn’t know that.”
So, when Al Levi came in, I spent three days locked behind closed doors with him, going step-by-step-by step as to what I expected from my technicians–and from my dispatchers, my customer service representatives, accounts receivable, accounts payable–even the oil truck driver.We weren’t really having a tremendous problem on the financial end, it was organizational, communications.
I ’d been reading Al Levi’s column in PM for months before meeting him at a C2000 meeting where he spoke.After that, I had no doubt. We needed him to get our operations to run smoother. Our company had been growing at more than 20% a year and that’s a good thing. But it was creating bottlenecks and stress for everyone.
Before we implemented Al’s Operating Power we had guidelines, but not everything was written down; a lot was in my head. In the first month after we rolled out our tech and apprentice manuals, we did have some “fence testers.” But all we had to do was get out the book and everyone knew what [...]
