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What Kind of Circuit Breaker Should You Install in a Commercial Building?

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StrategyDriven Tactical Execution Article | What Kind of Circuit Breaker Should You Install in a Commercial Building?

Commercial buildings are buildings zoned for commerce. You might see a lawyer’s office in a commercial building, or maybe you’ll see one being used as a furniture store.

Whatever it’s being used for, though, if it’s zoned commercial, it must be constructed correctly and have all the necessary components. The building’s owner and customers demand no less.

The electrical components within the building must all be functioning correctly. You should see the proper circuit breakers inside.

If you don’t know much about electrical systems, though, you may not know whether you want a square D 50-amp breaker in the commercial building or some other kind entirely. Let’s talk about which circuit breakers should go in commercial buildings right now.

What is a Circuit Breaker?

First, let’s define circuit breakers, just in case you don’t know this term. Breakers are electrical components. They’re safety devices. You install one as protection for an electrical circuit.

If there’s too much current running through one part of the electrical system, the breaker trips, which stops an overload. Electrical overloads can be quite serious since they can cause a fire in some instances.

What Goes Into Selecting a Circuit Breaker for Commercial Buildings?

There is no single answer as to what circuit breakers you want in commercial buildings. That is because several crucial factors go into making this choice.

You will need a professional electrician to answer this question for you. They will look at any existing regulations they must follow. They will examine the technological requirements and telecommunications systems associated with this particular electrical circuit.

They must also look at the load the circuit must bear and the electrical system’s general characteristics. Finally, they must consider the environment where the breaker will be installed. They must be mindful of the average temperature there, the humidity that might be present, and so forth.

The Rated Current and the Ambient Temperature

When a professional electrician looks at everything we mentioned, they will pay particular attention to the ambient temperature and the rated current. Say that they are dealing with a low-voltage distribution circuit breaker. If so, they will want to install those rated for 40 degrees Celsius for industrial CBs, or 30 degrees Celsius for commercial distributive or domestic CBs.

Compensated Thermal Magnetic Tripping Units

An electrician working in a commercial building might use a compensated thermal magnetic tripping unit if they have an enclosed electrical system where they must install energy-intensive CBs. This kind ends up getting installed in many commercial sites.

Uncompensated Units

An electrician might also install an uncompensated thermal magnetic tripping unit. These are appropriate for very hot climates or facilities.

If a facility is running some equipment that generates a lot of heat, you can bet the electrician will install an uncompensated unit.

Those are the basic rules regarding what circuit breakers you’ll see in commercial facilities. These are critical choices. A breaker that isn’t adequate for a particular building can cause tons of headaches for the employees and building owner.

Saving Money on Transport Costs with Packing Optimization

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StrategyDriven Tactical Execution Article | Saving Money on Transport Costs with Packing OptimizationThe pandemic. War. Soaring fuel prices. Economic turndown. The global cost of living crisis. Everyone knows how hard these recent challenges affect everything. Business owners know, too – especially those working in production and logistics. With transport costs ever-high, many company owners and managers seek ways to lower the burden, keeping their employees employed and their businesses healthy.

Sure, nobody can control the global problems driving up prices – but they can implement solutions to reduce their impact and save precious cash. Some solutions are simple; others are complex. But one thing’s for sure: they make a difference. Here are a few strategies to try if you’re a business owner or manager looking to reduce your logistical monetary nightmare and keep the company – and your teams – flowing seamlessly.

Optimize Packing

For significant savings on time and money, you must optimize shipment packing. Doing so is essential if your business sends or stores goods, with 3D Bin Packing an excellent example of this kind of modern service enabling packing optimization and, therefore, reduced costs. Currently, many businesses, small and large, manually organize and pack goods and orders. However, much of this process is guesswork, wasting materials and space.

Think of how many packages arrive full of air and unnecessary filler or small items cased within enormous boxes – such a waste! Not to mention, all that wasted material consumes staff time – and time is money, after all, even when enjoying the benefits of automation.

Still, that’s not the sole fund-draining source; unoptimized packing also wastes time and money on transporting all that unnecessary packaging, filler, and air, as well as all the fuel and labor that goes into production and logistics until the customer receives their goods.

Smart Planning

In logistics, planning heavily influences the supply chain budget. Failure to plan schedules, orders, and deliveries can lead to last-minute decisions – and worse, delays and missed deadlines. When delays and missed deadlines rear their heads, desperation calls, meaning your company might pay higher fees for urgent transport and even make avoidable packing errors that affect logistics costs.

To avoid these problems? Plan production, transportation, and deliveries well in advance. Still, it’s not enough to mark dates in calendars and send them to employees and drivers; smart planning and inventory management will enable you to take other variables into account that could, if unforeseen, impact your production and transport. Roadworks, traffic, the holidays, the weather, and even unexpected events like protests and strikes all have a place in smart planning.

Consolidated Shipments

Shipping goods in full container loads (FCL) is faster and cheaper compared to less than container loads (LCL). That said, plenty of businesses don’t have shipments large enough for an FCL. Instead, these companies have to opt for LCL, which entails higher costs and poorer efficiency.

Luckily, there’s a way to take advantage of FCL, even without larger shipments: shipment consolidation – when the transporter combines LCLs from multiple shippers to create a full container shipment (essentially, an FLC). Upon arriving at their destination, the goods are separated into their original LCL shipments, which the customers/owners can collect. Although this solution is ideal when suppliers share the same destination, it helps smaller ones lower logistics costs.

The Scope of Supply Chain Management in the Corporate Sector

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StrategyDriven Tactical Execution Article | The Scope of Supply Chain Management in the Corporate Sector

In today’s fast-paced economy, businesses can’t take a solo flight and achieve business goals. To achieve perpetual growth and increase revenues, businesses need to work closely with all parties involved in fulfilling core business operations. This includes a business’s suppliers, logistics partners, warehousing, distribution, retailers, and end-users or customers. Increased sales can be directly attributed to how successfully a business collaborates with the entire supply chain.

Supply chain management has immense potential to enhance business operations, improve productivity, and increase a business’s agility to changing market trends and customer demand. This article sheds light on the importance of supply chain management and its effective role in the corporate sector.

 

Understanding Supply Chain Management

Every product that reaches the customer is a result of a chain of activities, starting from acquiring raw materials from nature to processing, producing, and distributing finished products. Various entities work together to convert an idea into a product and ensure it reaches the intended customers acting as a loop in the chain. A single missing loop can disrupt the entire chain of businesses. These entities combine to form what we call a supply chain. Supply chain management (SCM) entails the optimal execution of all these events in a sustainable, cost-effective, and efficient manner using technology to cater to customers’ demands and minimize delays.

Since businesses rely heavily on supply chain experts to make sourcing strategies, forecast production, and maintain a balance between product supply and demand, they hire MBA in SCM graduates as logistics managers, supply chain managers, logistics analysts, procurement managers, and director purchasing. Due to its increased demand, educational institutes now offer degree programs, diplomas, and courses to equip students with conceptual and technical knowledge of SCM. Students can also choose an online MBA in supply chain management as a way to learn and work at the same time. MBA graduates with a concentration in supply chain management can use various strategies, tools, techniques, and methodologies to source, produce and distribute products.

 

Scope of Supply Chain Management in the Corporate Sector

No matter the nature of the business or which type of market a business operates in, it cannot exist in the fiercely competitive market without effective supply chain management; no company in the supply chain environment can exist long-term without SCM. This is why supply chain management’s scope, role, and significance cannot be overlooked. Here’s why supply chain management is gaining tremendous importance in the corporate sector today:

Reducing Operational Costs

SCM lowers the cost of operating a business by reducing the cost of material acquisition, production, and distribution. While specialized intelligent SCM systems play an important part in optimizing business processes, the right supply chain strategy by supply chain experts helps businesses choose the best supplier, minimize sourcing delays, and reduce the overall operational cost of production. Most supply chain strategies focus on optimizing supply chain entities and sourcing directly from ground-zero suppliers instead of third-party vendors. This increases sourcing efficiency, reduces operational costs, and improves product manufacturing and dispersal cycle.

Increase Cohesion and Interconnectivity

Supply chain management is about increasing cohesion between all parties involved in conducting core business functions. Supply chain management allows increased cohesion and interconnectivity between all parties involved, including suppliers, logistics, retailers, and consumers. Increased communication between these parties is vital for a business to increase market agility and reduce production and dispersal delays. It addresses significant difficulties related to corporate development, business partnerships, outsourcing, brand awareness, and product line expansion.

Operational Visibility

One of the major challenges for any business is enhancing its operational visibility in complex supply-and-demand structures. Operational visibility refers to an organization’s capacity to clearly understand how its major operations are functioning, and this is only possible by effectively monitoring all processes involved in the supply chain.

Effective supply chain management systems combined with business intelligence and data analytics equip supply chain experts with the right tools and knowledge to get an insight into business performance, market trends, and product performance. These tools allow them to better grasp the supply chain’s strengths and limitations and discover changing market trends that help them make better strategic decisions.

Decreased Disruptions

The more complex a supply chain network is, the more vulnerable it is to source and supply disruptions and market risks. Integrated SCM systems allow experts to study past data and analyze and predict future patterns. This helps businesses minimize disruptions in production, logistics, and distribution. Businesses can predict potential disruptions like price hikes, shortages of raw materials, increased market demand, or changes in transport routes.

Integrating Technology to Increase Agility

Businesses must implement agile supply chains to stay ahead of their competition and ensure the product maintains a supply-and-demand ratio in the market. Businesses achieve this by implementing integrated supply chain management systems that bring all entities involved in a supply chain to a single technological platform.

Supply chain management systems are important in increasing communication among entities and integrating major business functions. For example, suppliers can monitor a business’s raw material inventory and are instantly notified when inventory reaches replenishment points. Similarly, these integrated systems can generate automated purchase orders to vendors for approval by purchasing officers. Integrated SMS systems help businesses remove inefficiencies, optimize business processes, and improve agility in the supply chain to respond efficiently to changing market demand.

Businesses can detect problems and discover suitable solutions by optimizing and simplifying business processes. Businesses can use intelligent SCM systems with big data analytics to run what-if analyses and predict business performance under various unprecedented scenarios to examine alternatives and discover the best possible solution for a particular situation.

 

Final Thoughts

Supply chain management acts as a backbone for businesses to survive in the increasingly competitive global marketplace. To achieve perpetual growth and increase agility in a dynamic market, businesses need to incorporate the latest technology tools in their existing supply chain management systems and make smart use of supply chain analytics. When a business effectively reduces operational costs and improves cohesion among all supply chain entities, it reflects on its financial position and product or service quality. With smart SCM tools, businesses can improve revenues, meet production and sales targets, and achieve perpetual growth. Integrated supply chain management systems take all stakeholders on board and benefit each supply chain entity individually and collectively. We hope this article will help you recognize the importance of supply chain management and its role in business success and growth.

Optimizing Your Warehouse-Based Business, For Better Productivity

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StrategyDriven Tactical Execution Article | Optimizing Your Warehouse-Based Business, For Better Productivity

If you run a business that’s not office-based, but quite the opposite, and you have a whole warehouse (or more) to take care of; you’ll already know about that added challenges you’ll face in comparison. You’ll have all the regular admin and process of an office-based company, with an array of added responsibilities, requirements, and practices, to consider. However, the rewards and turnover can be great, as long as each area is performing well and your business as a whole is a well-oiled machine (quite literally in some cases). Therefore, it’s the ideal time of year to go through each part of your warehouse operation, and to access it.

You want to figure out the areas that are working well, where need improvement, and what to scrap all together. This will ensure that you head into next year feeling confident about any changes you wish to implement, and how you’re best investing your time, efforts, and money. In doing so, you’ll be able to optimize the productivity in your warehouse, which will provide you with growth and development in your business throughout 2023 and beyond. It can feel a little overwhelming at times to know where to start, so you’ve come to the right place. The following are some ideas, tips, and advice for business owners who want their warehouse to be running as smoothly as possible next year, for optimal productivity and an increase in momentum.

A Clean (as it can be) and Organized Space

When times are busy, which is hopefully quite often, in your warehouse; it can become chaos in the space of a few hours. And, over time the organization and tidiness of the place can begin to affect the productivity of your business negatively. A messy warehouse floor is also a safety hazard, especially with heavy machinery around, also dirt and too much grime and waste can pose a health risk to your workers and team. Therefore, it’s time to ensure that you have the processes in place to keep on top of it effectively; it’s time to invest in who and what you need to help so that you can ensure a well-maintained warehouse next year and beyond. Your employees will also thank you for it.

You may find that your waste builds-up quickly, and becomes out of hand; therefore, it’s worth looking into route optimization for waste collection so that you can get assistance in hauling the trash you create and ensure you’re on top of your waste management. If your waste vehicles are struggling with the speed and efficiency of taking the waste away, because they take waste away literally by the truckload; invest in a company that has the latest software to help solve these issues. This will be a significant improvement on how your business runs, so don’t delay in investing.

Employee’s Job Satisfaction and Happiness

By ensuring that your waste truck drivers has the best in technology for their routing, and keeping a clean, safe, and organized warehouse floor; you’ll already be contributing to employee happiness. Being able to do their job as effectively as possible, and boost productivity; your employees need to feel like a valuable part of the team. Therefore, it’s worth thinking about how best to invest in them.

Perhaps their break room needs redecorating so that they can enjoy a rest and some refreshments and food in a pleasant environment. Team building days are great for those who work in the same area and who need to get along well, so ensure that they’re a regular part of working in your business.

Fully Functioning Equipment At All Times

Again, employee safety is paramount when it comes to a warehouse set-up (and, any set-up). Often, the biggest risk to safety is the heavy machinery, vehicles, and any equipment that is utilized within your business. Therefore, it should always be a priority to carry out regular maintenance checks, and if things aren’t up to scratch; either repair or replace immediately to minimize the risk of an accident. You can also minimize the risk of any accidents by ensuring the flooring within your warehouse is of the best quality. You can learn more about installing a mezzanine floor to increase the capacity of your warehouse while keeping the same standard of safety.

This will also affect what you’re producing; it’s no good having a clean, tidy, and organized environment, if your team are at risk every time they go to use or drive something. It could be worth looking into software and technology, or a company that provides them (as mentioned before), for specific items or areas, so that you can keep on top of where and when to invest in your equipment, processes, routes, and management, for a safe and smooth working environment for everyone.

The Business Benefits of Lean Management

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StrategyDriven Managing Your Business Article | The Business Benefits of Lean Management

If you are looking for ways to ensure that your business is as efficient and as profitable as possible, then taking a closer look at lean management is probably a sensible idea.

What is lean management? It is a production method that focuses on reducing times during the manufacturing process, whether it is in the production itself or at the logistics end. It is a method that aims to strip everything back to its bare essentials with a view of increasing productivity.

What are the benefits of lean management?

There are a number of benefits you are likely to see if you adopt a leaner approach to running your business, including the following:

Faster lead times

Perhaps, the biggest benefit of adopting a lean management style is that it will enable you to get things done much more quickly than you are now. Anything that is unnecessary will be stripped away, leaving you and your employees to focus on getting the job done.

Any step that is not vital to the manufacturing process will be removed, and stricter inventory processes will be implemented to ensure that you always have just the right amount of inventory for your needs which means less time managing excess stock and more time working on the task at hand.

An improvement in quality

A lean management style is likely to lead to an increase in quality because it enables you to more easily identify any problems in your manufacturing processes, and it will also help you to come up with more innovative solutions to those problems, Not only that, but it enables you to invest in things like automation and better cleanroom design which will lower the number of mistakes and defects that are made well in advance of them hitting the marketplace.

Better levels of customer service

With a lean management style. Every step of the process is documented, which means, when problems do arise, you can more quickly resolve them by checking the log and pinpointing issues. It will be easier for you to make the customer happy when you have all of the information you need to help them, and even more importantly, all of the info you need to eliminate aspects of the product that the customers find unnecessary.


Greater efficiency

Of course, when it comes to efficiency, lean management is hard to beat. Working practices are standardized and the best processes are put in place to make working in your business as simple as can be. Not only is this good for efficiency in and of itself, but it helps to boost staff morale too, and as you will know, happy workers are more productive workers.

Peace of mind

When you implement lean management practices, you have the peace of mind that comes with knowing your business is optimized to the nth degree.

As you can see, lean management can reduce errors, increase productivity and boost your bottom line, so be sure to consider it for your business going forward.