Avionics News March 2017 - 62

series

BUSINESS BASICS
B Y

G R E G

L A S L O

Out and about
Learn from your peers with shop visits

62

avionics news

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march

2017

businesses to visit colleagues with the aim of improving
shop operations, including why it's useful, who you
might want to visit, and what you could look for on
those tours. After all, smart solutions are out there, you
just sometimes have to go find them. Sometimes, you
just have to think outside your box.
Search for smarts
Before you turn up your nose at sniffing around at
how other shops do business, consider this: Someone is
probably already doing whatever it is you need to improve,
and vice versa. Everyone has different priorities, ideas,
motivations and opportunities, and each act on those when
the time is right for them. By learning from other shops'
experience, you're embracing real-world education that
serves your precise needs, supplements what you're studying
at conferences, trade shows, and other events, and offers
tangible benefits from the experience of others.
According to readers of Ratchet and Wrench, a trade
magazine for independent auto-repair businesses, these
visits can be invaluable. It's easy to be complacent when the
shop seems to be running well when, in fact, there are often
several areas that could use improvement - whether that's
general management, shop operations, and even tool and
inventory storage. Visits allow these managers to work on the
business (not just in it) and bring home practical ideas.
This makes tours a natural complement to seminar
learning, because you can see concepts in action, in real
 

I

t's a mantra among pilots: Keep your eyes
open and look outside the airplane to maintain
situational awareness.
That's a tasty bit of business advice, too. Running
an avionics shop is complicated, and you have plenty
of balls in the air to keep you busy. But if your head is
down on the details of running your shop, you might
miss some big-picture opportunities that make your
enterprise run better.
Think of it this way: Your technicians aren't the only
people in your shop who should pursue continuing
education. You should, too, and so should the rest of
your leadership team. In this case, some of the best
teachers may be your successful peers, and it might be
worth your time to peek inside their shops to learn more
about the procedures and practices they use. Indeed,
touring other avionics shops can provide real-world
insight that's not always available in classrooms or
books.
It's a simple idea: If you're having challenges,
struggles or concerns with your shop, chances are
someone else has, too - and they're likely to have found
solutions that are applicable to you, as well. By visiting
shops outside your market area - those that aren't direct
competitors - you can get a master class in business that
pays big returns.
In the spirit of looking elsewhere for solutions, let's
explore how some other industries encourage their
Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Avionics News March 2017
