Cornerstone Consulting Blog

Entropy is disorder in a system that results in loss of energy, reducing the amount of energy available to perform work. An integral concept in the second law of thermodynamics, entropy is also a necessary consideration when working to maximize the efficiency and success of a business. 

Entropy is complicated. Would you rather just talk? 

Hiring the right people is the best thing you can do for your organization. Though time may be the most valuable resource, people are the make-or-break factor for any company. Most successful organizations are built upon great people who bring a variety of skills, knowledge, and abilities to the table. The wrong people could have all the time in the world and still fail, but the right people in the right positions can overcome time limitations to create success. Even if a company looks great on the outside, problems with human resources can spell disaster.

Buying a company is a huge investment which means you want to enter into the agreement with all of the correct information on everything from sales reports to inventory. This is where due diligence comes into play.

Cornerstone Consulting is pleased to welcome Beth Crowley as our new vice president of global operations. Beth's extensive hands-on background in all aspects of executive coaching, including change management, process re-engineering, value stream optimization, and team leadership, makes her a valuable addition to our team. She's worked domestically and internationally in both manufacturing and corporate environments with a focus on assessing operations and implementing strategies to eliminate waste and increase employee engagement and productivity. Beth has facilitated more than 200 successful rapid improvement (kaizen) events using quality tools such as lean and Six Sigma.

"Lean" manufacturing has been deemed one of the most popular and effective ways to improve the efficiency and profitability of a manufacturing process. This philosophy uses a strategy to eliminate seven forms of waste. This set of tools assists in the identification and steady elimination of waste throughout each step of the manufacturing process. Waste is anything that does not add value to the production process. As waste is eliminated, quality improves, production time diminishes, and costs are reduced.

Cornerstone’s exclusive Fundamental Intrinsic Theorem Manufacturing (FIT MFG) is a physics-based organizational optimization platform that ensures maximization of cash flow and organizational profit. FIT MFG examines the interaction between 10 intrinsic orders, focusing on optimizing the entire system rather than attempting to optimize individual subsystems within the whole. When followed, FIT MFG always gravitates an organization toward its optimal operating range.

Every business faces constant challenges, from changing global economic situations to supply-chain issues and evolving customer preferences. Both internal and external circumstances can strain a business to the brink of failure. In order to come back from the edge and get back on stable, solid ground again, many organizations look to turnaround consulting.

As President of Cornerstone Consulting Organization, I interact with and support hundreds of leaders each year from staff managers to CEOs. Many of our new client entry points are helping them dig out of a bad situation where time has run out. As part of the recovery process, we immediately introduce them to our Fundamental Intrinsic Theorem Manufacturing (FIT MFG) platform. During that introduction, we ask them the most important question: What is the most important resource in your business? “Our people” is almost always their answer.

Bringing in a professional outside business consultant can provide you with an invaluable third-party perspective into your organization and new ideas for growth strategies, cost cutting, time-saving tools, and more. Consultants, however, are not all equal. How do you know whether the consultant you hire is actually helping your business and providing you with value commensurate with their compensation? This is where ROI-based consulting agreements can be priceless.

Six Sigma can be a revolutionary tool to improve your organization’s operational efficiency. Its basic approach is to reframe common business activities and overall systems as statistical problems. Applying Six Sigma principles, a consultant defines specific steps for each standard process, collects performance data about each step, analyzes that data, and figures out the combination of variable values that creates the best result with the least variation or inefficiency.