Operation Excellence : Art of Implementation

Planning and Monitoring of the initiative extensively with the middle and lower management who are going to supervise or execute the implementation.
The commitment of Supervisors and Workers is key to successful implementation
Awareness and Skill of Operators

In the first decade of 21st century, the Indian market changed from seller driven to market driven. Businesses started focusing inwards for cost optimization to survive. In consequence of this, various institutions, associations and individuals started operation and manufacturing excellence projects and cluster programs. Industries participated in these excellence programs with intent and intensity but most of them gained in short term only. Very few were able to sustain in long term.
Companies especially small size and mid-size were not able to take it forward on their own. There could be several factors for non-sustenance but few were quite evident. For example,

The Organization’s team members were changing frequently.

The program was not directly addressing current business challenges.

Justification of ROI on the program was vague and not reflecting on the balance sheet.

Time devoted by Subject Matter Experts was not enough etc.

Involvement of middle and lower management was not by choice.

Though operation excellence initiative is and will be there in organizations but the method of delivery has to be changed. The success of such programs lies in understanding the business and addressing its priority challenges. Implementation agencies need to devise mechanism for delivering a customized solution. One size fit for all may not serve the purpose. Our experience suggests three key focus areas for successful implementations.

Planning and Monitoring of the initiative extensively with the middle and lower management who are going to supervise or execute the implementation.

Existing Scenario

Excellence programs are mostly top driven initiatives. In this scenario, middle management just obey instructions and try to balance extra workload with the current challenges. Therefore, their efforts and results on OPEX can be bare minimum just to save their face in front of top management. Many a time, improvement can be very short term in nature.

Recommendation

The team or agency that is leading such program should sit with each of the middle management personnel. The agency and project lead should spend enough time in listening and understanding the middle management personnel. This activity can provide list of micro challenges that middle management faces on daily basis. It could also be possible that middle management may have very little control over these challenges. However, resolving such micro challenge is essential for OPEX (Operation Excellence) implementation.

The program needs to be customized with tools and techniques that solve their challenges and ease their day to day work load rather than add extra workload. Once this task is completed the next challenges can be how to commit the supervisors in OPEX program monitoring and control.

Awareness and Skill of Operators

Existing Scenario Mostly, small and mid-size organizations, workers are employed on contractual. Their attrition is quite high. Recruitment is part of HR daily activity. In such a scenario, an organization’s workers can be very less skilled on their day to day tasks leave alone skills in other excellence tasks. This can become a Catch 20-20 situation for the OPEX team to justify ROI of operator skill upgradation program. Recommendation Awareness and skill upgradation trainings by immediate supervisors, rewards and recognition schemes, and contact programs (WCP, MCP) make workers realize that they are part of the company. These activities have given excellent results in the long run. But old habits die hard therefore it is suggested to have patience in sticking to the game plan. It can lead to unimaginable results. To summarize, I suggest the total employee engagement can be a leading key performance indicator, an organization need to measure, for the success of OPEX Initiatives. The involvement needs to be measured in planning as well as execution. Secondly, it can be measured across the hierarchy.