I've talked to a number of major embroidery and screen contractors in recent months. I find they are divided into two camps. One camp emphasizes control through accounting. They rely on job costing for orders and other accounting techniques to evaluate their operation.
The second camp is much smaller. They emphasize control of processes. They use Continuous Process Improvement of either the formal variety, or their own equivalent.
What are the differences between the two approaches?
The traditional approach, used by American manufacturing for most of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, is that of accounting controls. Accounting is detail oriented. It is backward looking--historical. It tracks and reviews results of past behavior.
-James Hedges, Customer Service Rep, Simms Fishing