Sage Veterans Fuel Industry Bloodlines — Michelson

When Roger revealed to me this spring that he was terminally ill, indicating he wanted to keep writing his column to the end, I interviewed him for his keen insight about the industry he loved so dearly. When asked where he felt printers fall short, Roger raised three issues: 1) the false belief by managers who think they’ve actually reduced their costs by reducing their Budgeted Hourly Costs, 2) the misperception about the importance of velocity of cash flow, partly due to use of traditional general ledger systems, and 3) the unnecessary delay in getting relevant information to those people who must make the daily decisions.

“We haven’t moved our management model ahead with technology and the times,” he lamented. “We’re still using the old models that don’t give us the decision tools we need. We need to get with dashboards and weekly decisions tools—and use them. We can’t wait until the end of the quarter or month to find out the results of our decisions.”

Good advice, Rog (as he called himself in his columns). Your desire for constant learning, even at age 85 and homebound, was remarkable. A true visionary with noble bloodlines.

Mark T. Michelson