EON Blog

Developing a culture of continuous improvement (CI) is one way that top-performing companies differentiate from their peers by enabling them to grow revenues and drive cost out of their business long after others have plateaued. However, creating sustainable continuous improvement is a significant challenge for organizations of all sizes irrespective of where they stand in their CI journey.

Operational excellence (OpEx) isn’t just a “nice to have,” it’s a core part of how modern organizations remain competitive and cost-effective. At its core, OpEx is the execution of your business strategy with greater consistency and efficiency than the competition. The role of the OpEx team is to facilitate the implementation of the behaviors and work process required to achieve what the business requires to be successful.

The road toward impactful, sustainable continuous improvement (CI) for most organizations will almost certainly contain potholes, roadblocks, and other hazards, which is why it’s crucial to take a thoughtful approach to how you introduce and deploy CI through the organization.  In our experience working with dozens of companies across multiple industries, we’ve gleaned a few insights into what separates organizations who “get it right” when it comes to CI from those who struggle to gain traction and make meaningful change.

I’m sure you’ve heard the saying, “A craftsman never blames his tools.”  It’s one that’s often repeated in circumstances where a person is projecting blame for a problem that he/she actually caused.  And there’s no doubt in my mind that there is significant truth in this adage (I’ve messed up more than one home repair project in which I wanted to blame the tools).  However, like many aphorisms that get thrown about nowadays, it’s likely to be misapplied on many occasions because the truth is there are occasions where the tool is actually the problem.

At EON, we’re privileged to work with OpEx Leaders and teams at a wide variety of organizations, which gives us broad exposure to the latest trends and most pressing challenges that our clients face.  Some of our clients are new to formal OpEx and are just getting their “sea legs” so to speak.  Others have been at it for some time and are trying to take their efforts to the next level.  The third category of client is one that has been on the journey for some time and has been able to implement a structured approach to OpEx within most or all of the organization.

At EON, we’re privileged to work with OpEx Leaders and teams at a wide variety of organizations, which gives us broad exposure to the latest trends and most pressing challenges that our clients face.  Some of our clients are new to formal OpEx and are just getting their “sea legs” so to speak.  Others have been at it for some time and are trying to take their efforts to the next level.  The third category of client is one that has been on the journey for some time and has been able to implement a structured approach to OpEx within most or all of the organization.

As we reflect on our work with clients across the OpEx maturity spectrum, we’ve identified 3 key challenges that every OpEx Leader will eventually need to address at some point in order to drive an approach to operational excellence that stands above the rest.  We sometimes refer to these as the 3S’s on the OpEx journey. Read on to learn about challenge #2, 'How to Scale Your Efforts'.

At EON, we’re privileged to work with OpEx Leaders and teams at a wide variety of organizations, which gives us broad exposure to the latest trends and most pressing challenges that our clients face.  Some of our clients are new to formal OpEx and are just getting their “sea legs” so to speak.  Others have been at it for some time and are trying to take their efforts to the next level.  The third category of client is one that has been on the journey for some time and has been able to implement a structured approach to OpEx within most or all of the organization.

A common challenge for many organizations is to develop an operational excellence deployment model that is sufficiently compelling to overcome the natural inertia (or outright resistance) that resides at the plant sites.  Many of us are familiar with the standard justifications for that inertia, including:

In a previous blog post titled Production Systems 101, I described three key characteristics that could effectively serve as a “litmus test” as to whether your organization has truly implemented a production system vs. having one in name only.

Terms like organizational agility and business agility are all the rage nowadays.  Companies need the ability to rapidly react and respond to changing business conditions, whether caused by shifts in the economic environment, new competitive threats, evolving customer expectations, or increased regulatory requirements.

The question, of course, is how to increase agility, particularly at large, complex enterprises with hundreds or thousands of employees working across geographic, functional, or divisional boundaries.  

With that in mind, here are three tips to move any organization down the path toward increased agility.