By Jon Sapir

A recent article in the New York Times describes the launch of the James Webb Space Telescope:

Two weeks ago, the most powerful space observatory ever built roared into the sky, carrying the hopes and dreams of a generation of astronomers in a tightly wrapped package of mirrors, wires, motors, cables, latches and willowy sheets of thin plastic on a pillar of smoke and fire.

On Saturday, the observatory, the James Webb Space Telescope, completed a final, crucial step around 10:30 a.m. by unfolding the last section of its golden, hexagonal mirrors. Nearly three hours later, engineers sent commands to latch those mirrors into place, a step that amounted to it becoming fully deployed, according to NASA.

It was the most recent of a series of delicate maneuvers with what the space agency called 344 “single points of failure” while speeding far away in space. Now the telescope is almost ready for business, although more tense moments are still in its future.

In the same way that the launch had 344 single points of failure, so too do your business operations have many points of failure. The problem is that they are muddled through without anyone taking a step back and asking “How do we address our points of failure?”. Of course, “muddling through” was not an option for the Telescope launch – the team had to uncover and find solutions to their points of failure. And “muddling through” shouldn’t be an option for your business operations either.

Examples of points of failure in business operations include lack of real-time visibility over who is doing what when, poor work transitions, and rigid business processes. All of these points of failure slow a company down, raise costs, lead to employee frustration, and impact customer satisfaction.

The good thing about points of failure is that they are fixable with the right software.

Over the years working with a wide range of customers in many different industries and company sizes, we at Work-Relay have identified 111 typical points of business operations failure that every company should address.

You can find the list here.

If you are interested in finding out how you can easily eliminate all these points of failure, please schedule a no-cost Discovery Session with a Work-Relay specialist here.