Resources in Operational Excellence (OPEX)

Our focus on Operational Excellence (OE) is on the alignment of strategies, processes, performers, measures, technologies and management to achieve and sustain outstanding levels of performance of the entire enterprise.

Our belief is that Operational Excellence is achievable only when an organization has defined the major elements that affect performance and aligned them (which often means redesigning them) to support strategies and goals.

Just as often the task of alignment also means ridding the organization of things (practices, policies, organization structures) that impede Operational Excellence.

Displaying 11 - 20 of 263 resources matching your criteria.

The Key Ingredient to the Implementation of Operational Excellence = Training

Contributed by:Marvin Wurtzel, Faculty Member, BPMInstitute.org and Principal Consultant, Marvin M. Wurtzel & Associates, Inc.

Implementing operational excellence so that the enterprise benefits is an important issue that needs close examination. An operational excellence strategy model implementation should result in a business management system that encourages process improvement so that the organization’s key performance indicators (KPIs) benefit. In order to accomplish this successfully we must have the appropriate skills available to the organization.

The Challenges in Deploying Operational Excellence

Contributed by:Marvin Wurtzel, Faculty Member, BPMInstitute.org and Principal Consultant, Marvin M. Wurtzel & Associates, Inc.

Deploy: to organize and send out (people or things) to be used for a particular purpose; to open up and spread out the parts of (something, such as a parachute). Source: Merriam-Webster’s Learner’s Dictionary

Organizations face many challenges when trying to deploy or redeploy an improvement program. So much of the success of any initiative depends on how it is implemented and used by the organization. To be successful, you must consider what is the correct method to use, what are the change management issues, and how it will be deployed. A one-size-fits-all mentality will not work in any of these three areas.

It all begins with culture

We must begin with self-examination of the current culture in your organization. Several questions must be answered:

Four of the Top Reasons for Operational Excellence Failure

Contributed by:Andrew Spanyi, Faculty Member, DBizInstitute.org and Managing Director, Spanyi International

Given that operational excellence (Op Ex) was built on a solid foundation of total quality management principles, it’s a bit surprising that as many as two thirds of Op Ex programs fail to meet expectations. While there are many reasons accounting for the failure of enterprise wide Op Ex programs, the following are arguably the top four in my experience.

Lack of Purpose

Innovating your Operational Excellence Program

Contributed by:David Hamme, Managing Director, Ephesus Consulting

Inside the four walls of most companies today, you will find Operational Excellence (OE) or Process Excellence (PE) programs aimed to accelerate the improvement activities of a business. The titles of the programs may or may accurately depict the actual work, as there are no universal definitions for OE or PE. In general, OE programs improve the scalability, reduce cost, increase flexibility, improve quality or adjust the strategic focus of the value creation engine. PE programs historically focus on similar goals, but using processes as the foundational improvement construct. Many consultants and process practitioners speak of the convergence of the realms of OE and PE. This is an important change in business improvement planning. Many of us have learned that processes are very effective tools to use as the basis for planning and executing strategic and operational improvements.

The Leadership Engine for the Journey to Operational Excellence

Contributed by:Marvin Wurtzel, Faculty Member, BPMInstitute.org and Principal Consultant, Marvin M. Wurtzel & Associates, Inc.

In order to initiate Operational Excellence we focus on establishing the structures, tools, methodologies and systems required. The manage program phase sustains that work by providing ongoing oversight and leadership for this initiative. In this phase the executive leadership attends to the following ongoing responsibilities:

• Sets and deploys enterprise goals and strategies via core business processes.
• Manages program-level plans and accountabilities.
• Monitors priority process performance and related interventions.
• Maintains alignment between enterprise structures, systems, and core business processes.
•Leverages best practices across the enterprise.
The ultimate objective is that these responsibilities gradually become integrated into the fabric of enterprise management practices. That is, they become “the way we do things around here.” We will discuss these responsibilities in greater detail in the following.

OpEx – PART OF or SEPARATE FROM Business Transformation?

Contributed by:Rick Hepp, Trainer, Coach & Mentoir for Enterprise Excellence, Consultant and Trainer

By its very name, Operational Excellence (OpEx) has held a traditional operations approach in most corporate visions and as a result been strongest in manufacturing operations/production sites or within department/functional operational lines of organizations.

Does the traditional operational approach create a “Separate From” business strategic linkage in corporate visions?

Historical Deployment and Engagement of OpEx

From OpEx early days as Six Sigma and Lean – the methodologies, tools and techniques were leveraged as a continuous improvement mindset with Cost Savings as King although it has evolved over the years at mature organizations to include waste elimination, improved process flow & efficiencies, enhanced capacity, and a quality/compliance driver.

The Five Essentials of Operational Excellence

Contributed by:Marvin Wurtzel, Faculty Member, BPMInstitute.org and Principal Consultant, Marvin M. Wurtzel & Associates, Inc.

Before an organization can embark on the journey to Organizational Excellence there are some conditions that need to exist beforehand. The five essentials are pre-existing conditions provide the foundation upon which the tools of Organizational Excellence are built.

The five essentials of Operational Excellence assumes that the organizational leadership and each functional area has a vision and a structure to direct its efforts, operates to principles, needs people to deliver value and tools to help develop basic capabilities and processes.

The five essentials of Operational Excellence are:

Vision
Structure
People
Principles
Tools

Each is an essential and critical element, creating a whole that is greater than the sum of the parts.

1. Vision

Taking Operational Excellence to the Next Level

Contributed by:Andrew Spanyi, Faculty Member, DBizInstitute.org and Managing Director, Spanyi International

Best in class companies understand that Operational Excellence (Op Ex) is the means to an end and not an end in itself. Yet, many organizations dedicated to Op Ex focus mostly on assuring that the core skills of Lean and Six Sigma are in place and that people understand work as a process. In some cases, companies choose to deploy Op Ex along departmental lines and fail to take full advantage of removing the non-value added steps residing in cross functional handoffs. While building the foundation for Op Ex is important, it’s not enough on its own. A company intent on taking Op Ex to the next level may wish to consider the following four tactics.

Requirements for Operational Excellence Success

Contributed by:Marvin Wurtzel, Faculty Member, BPMInstitute.org and Principal Consultant, Marvin M. Wurtzel & Associates, Inc.

In the past few years Operational Excellence (OpEx) has become one of the most prominent trends in the improvement arena, many large corporations have ambitiously applied OpEx. Because the results have often been extremely good, this has stimulated growing interest among other organizations. A serious drawback of the increasing attention that OpEx is receiving is that some companies choose to be trendy and simply follow the herd without questioning, adapting and designing an OpEx program to suit their own specific needs.

Dealing with Cultural Challenges in Operational Excellence

Contributed by:Shelley Sweet, Faculty Member, BPMInstitute.org and President, i4 Process

Operational Excellence focuses on providing the best execution of service and process for the benefit of the customer and the organization. It is not a proprietary program or methodology; rather, the term usually represents a conglomeration of process methods and techniques to improve operational discipline, its performance metrics, and customer satisfaction.

Operational Excellence is an enterprise approach. Companies want to address more end-to-end processes, going beyond earlier smaller process improvement projects in one department. For end-to- end processes to be successful organizations need to have consistent execution aligned with organizational purpose, leadership accountability that spans organizational boundaries, and employee skills and behaviors that see the flow of work across the organization and make results happen for the customer.