Are There Cocktail Sticks in Your Laboratory?

When I first started at LMT in 1985, we worked in Judy’s basement and my desk was a wooden door propped up by two filing cabinets. As a startup company, we learned a lot about operating lean. In some ways, the pandemic has brought us full circle as we, like so many businesses, have been especially cost conscious this past year.

I’ve been reading some interesting articles about companies making small tweaks to their businesses and reaping big rewards. They’re not cutting corners or impacting the final product in any significant way, just looking for ways to boost their bottom line.

For instance, in 2017, Walmart shortened the length of its customer sales receipts, saving $7 million that year and is now making workers’ vests out of recyclable materials, cutting costs by 15%. As Walmart CFO Brett Biggs explains, “You can take a lot of small projects…you can scale them across the business, and they can lead to impressive savings.”

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