What do we mean by time management?
Time management is a planning and organizing activity, which has now become fundamental in many areas of life. Its primary objective is to increase efficiency, effectiveness and productivity also in company management.
By its nature, therefore, time management is particularly suitable when used in the workplace where it is necessary, every day, to manage great complexities in terms of resources, flows, processes and, last but not least, relationships.
Managing time doesn’t just mean pigeonholing operations, giving delivery dates or establishing execution times. Very often, in fact, the optimization of repetitive and mechanical operational activities becomes an integral part of the considerations relating to the use of time.
Engaging in optimizing operational times therefore means evaluating where to automate successfully to unlock the time necessary for strategic business development actions.
Difference between corporate and personal time management
The ability to manage time turns out to be very useful both in work and in private life. In fact, we can summarize the types of time management in two categories: corporate and personal.
The company management system brings with it greater complexity as even the mere management of the number of people is greater than one. The personal management system is left to the free will of each of us because each person knows how time management tools can adapt to their life.
In addition to the sum of individual personal management tools (calendar, agenda, time calculating, to do, etc.), corporate time management tools can be programs to support some management of operations that steal time and which could be automated.
“The whole is more than the sum of the individual parts” (R. Zerbetto, 1998)
Personal time management tools, on the other hand, can be useful because they teach you to recognize the priorities to pay attention to, to define exactly the time it takes to carry out a certain operation and identify any flow difficulties.
Time management and complexity management
Taking a cue from the theory of complexity, we define complex systems as dynamic systems with multi-components that relate to each other at multiple levels.
According to Edgar Morin, in fact “Complexity is a problem word and not a solution word”
This brings us back to all the structured companies which by their nature refer to this definition and where time management turns out to be a fundamental tool for guaranteeing the correct productive functioning.
From the birth of the super computer to today, however, something has changed in the challenge of corporate complexity. In fact, companies have grown exponentially, increasing personnel, production and turnover, in some cases even becoming multinationals.
In particular, in recent years, with the arrival of digitization and 4.0, for the management of complex business systems it is necessary to integrate the concept of time management with some dedicated software to automate those business operations that steal precious time from other actions strategic.
We remind you that the objective of time management remains to increase efficiency, effectiveness and productivity.
Company 4.0: what are the most sought-after optimization areas?
The 4.0 company relies on the digitization of some operational activities that are optimized and automated by dedicated software from which data can be monitored and analyzed in real time.
In fact, digital innovation exploits the power of gathering information throughout the life cycle of the product/service offered. This allows the collection of numerous data that allow immediate and constant improvement.
The areas of major intervention in the company for the digitization, automation and optimization of processes are:
- Sales cycle: creation of estimates, product configuration, sales network management, communication with the customer, and automation in order flow management.
- Accessory management: document management, product dossier management, customer documentation, collection of certifications, etc.
- Production flow: parallel monitoring of the administrative and production flow of raw materials, orders and inventory.
A practical example: Document management for industrial assets
Our experience teaches us that it is precisely on the subject of document management that many companies are caught up in the drama of wasting time. On the one hand, machine manufacturers need to manage the machine file in a flexible way, on the other end-users need to be able to immediately view the documentation for maintenance purposes, especially in critical phases.
Although it seems trivial, here the theme is divided into two areas, the speed of management and the immediacy of consultation. In this case the benefits sought are:
- Organize without wasting time and using a standardized model.
- Share securely through dynamic tools that make it easy to update.
- Have the necessary documentation at hand at critical moments.
- Enable smooth collaboration between users in order to simplify work.
Time optimization is therefore a very multifaceted topic. Understanding where time is spent without the purpose of growth is therefore the first step to ensure that a virtuous cycle of business improvement and growth is started.
