Operational Excellence

Many people believe that companies can only survive if their day-to-day business is running. Long-term strategies are often neglected, but they are just as important. This can be remedied by aligning the company with the overall strategy. This process is also known as Operational Excellence, or OPEX for short. This task is performed by an Operational Excellence Manager, who is responsible for permanent and dynamic optimization. It is important that all systems and processes in the value chain are considered. The aim is to increase efficiency and focus on customer requirements and root cause analysis. Operational excellence is therefore the guarantee for the economic success of a company.

Operational excellence put into practice

The management focus of an Operational Excellence initiative changes over time. Therefore, awareness of critical success factors and barriers in the OPEX initiative must be raised. Guidelines for designing, reviewing and adapting an excellence program can provide this. Obviously, the introduction of an operational excellence initiative is about specific management skills. Introducing a continuous improvement process for the first time requires different skills than maintaining a system in a stable state. Factory planning projects are particularly well suited to this as they involve fundamentally new concepts. Comparing successful practices with less favorable ones leads to a summary of barriers and success factors.

Operational excellence is a permanent process

If you want your company to be successful in the long term, you have to apply operational excellence on a permanent basis. Continuous improvement is the motto, which is based on various methods, such as:

• Lean management (avoiding waste through efficiency)
• Operations Research (number-based support for decision-making, implementation and control)
• Six Sigma (focus on facts and data, customer focus and proactive error prevention)
• Total Productive Maintenance (for optimized maintenance)
• Supply chain management (optimization of the value chain as a whole)

Operational excellence integrates numerous corporate functions into the process in order to satisfy customer needs as efficiently as possible. Operational Excellence also has advantages for the company and its employees. Old structures are dissolved and a dynamic process of continuous improvement begins. Operational excellence can also motivate employees, as it loosens knots that have become stuck in the company.

Do you want to optimize the operational performance of your company?

At Bross Consulting, we can help you with operational excellence and ensure that your awareness of critical success factors is raised. Ask for a free initial consultation.