In the fourth quarter last year, Canadian labour productivity experience its largest gain since the first quarter of 1998 (1.4 per cent). As well, manufacturing sales were up 2.4 per cent in January – this was unexpected, as economists had been expecting a 0.6 per cent gain. (Source)

So what does this mean for us? It is definitely a good sign, but there is always a chance we expect more of this than there actually is. By just taking a look at what happened in the fourth quarter, one may think that it’s time to start hiring more workers for the expected increase in business – however, if businesses try to grow to the size they were previously too quickly, it may once again result in strains on those businesses. While the growth is definitely something to embrace, stay cautious about getting too far ahead of what your business can handle at its current state.

We often tell people that failed projects are embraced by the SR&ED program, and sometimes it can be a little hard to understand exactly why. I mean, isn’t the program meant to promote innovation, and to encourage technological development? If so, then why are projects that don’t result in a more innovative product or process applicable for the SR&ED program?

This goes back to the three criteria of the program: Technological Advancement, Technological Obstacles and Technical Content.

When looking at a failed project, you most likely faced a number of Technological Obstacles while working on it – these obstacles are anything that prevented you from getting to the final objective, so obviously in a failed project you faced a number of obstacles.

The technical content shows the systematic investigation that was done while trying to reach the final objective, which would be done for both failed and successful projects.

Lastly, your knowledge has been expanded in the instance of failed projects as well – in these instances, you now have the knowledge that there is no way that you have found to get to the final objective.

So yes, failed projects definitely qualify for the SR&ED program, as long as they too fulfill the three criteria of the program.

We’ve spoken a bit about continuous improvement on our blog, but we haven’t yet talked about WHY exactly it is important for manufacturers, and how exactly you can apply it to your business.

As a brief reminder, continuous improvement is the process of constantly making your business run more efficiently, with better effectiveness and producing better quality. On the most basic level, it is a series of small changes to improve your business, with the belief that building on all of these small changes will make a great bettering of your business. It is perhaps best stated by Edward Deming, as “the need to improve constantly and forever the system of production and service to improve quality and productivity and thus constantly decrease costs.”

This process is important for manufacturers, especially in our economic time, because it can help us to cut costs, to produce higher quality products at a faster rate, to reduce the amount of waste and deficient products we produce, and to remain competitive with other companies (both on a national and global stage).

Sounds like a great thing, doesn’t it? And there are many different ways in which you can apply continuous improvement in manufacturing, some of which are very successful and have become very popular. These include Kaizen, Just-in-Time and Lean manufacturing.

How are you applying continuous improvement in your business?