Operational Excellence

What is Operational Excellence?

Operational Excellence (OpEx) ultimately has the goal improved business performance. This, of course, is the goal of many business management philosophies, so how is Operational Excellence different?

Put simply, Operational excellence involves a holistic approach to creating a long-term culture of continuous improvement by aligning a number of well-known and proven business improvement methodologies. The approach is based on the overall vision of the company and how to execute this, and involves every facet, encompassing every process and employee in the business.

Operational Excellence looks beyond short-term cost reduction to focus instead on improvements that support enduring and sustainable business growth.

What methodologies does Operational Excellence embrace?

Operational Excellence can embrace a number of techniques and tools, but commonly involves:

Lean Manufacturing
Six Sigma
Kaizen (Continuous Improvement)

What are the common pitfalls of companies implementing Operational Excellence?

Although Operational Excellence is an extremely powerful approach to business improvement, it is well known that many companies fail to.

The main pitfalls we have identified are:

Not communicating the purpose – What is your Burning Platform?
Lack of leadership Buy-in and Support – Leaders need to lead from the front and provide their support.
Lack of awareness in the team – They will need training and engaging in the tools and behaviours
Ensuring it is embraced across the whole business – Operational Excellence is not just for Operations!

Opex Foundation Academy

Organisations sometime depend just on a single person to drive CI activities on a multitude of initiatives. The Opex Foundation Academy gives the opportunity to train and extend Lean Six Sigma knowledge across the organisation by creating a wider team of Operational Excellence Champions who are knowledgeable in the foundational tool and behaviours required.

This cascade of knowledge helps to change the business culture across all levels and functions and starts to develop the new language associated with Operational Excellence. Projects can now embrace a knowledge set with tools and techniques previously not considered, yielding business benefits in a timely manner.

View our OpEx Academy