The leaders of B2B companies often face a conundrum in sales and marketing. Their products, services, and talented people solve customer problems daily. Their approaches to awareness, conversion, and retention make sense. They’ve tried to improve training, coaching, automation, incentives, and more. Often more than once! And despite many attempts, growth and profitability are unsatisfactory....

This post Facts and Values; The Keys to Operational Excellence in Sales and Marketing appeared first on Operational Excellence Society.

This article is provided courtesy of theleanmag, a content partner of the Operational Excellence Society. In the culinary world, excellence is often measured by the ability to create unique flavor profiles, master cooking techniques, and present dishes that are visually appealing. Chefs spend years honing their skills, experimenting with ingredients, and perfecting their recipes in order...

This post What does Excellence taste like? appeared first on Operational Excellence Society.

Running to standard Whenever there is a problem, we should always first ask the question: Are we running to standard? Often the issue is that we’ve not followed the standard and we simply aren’t doing what we ought to be doing. It can be hard to admit to ourselves that we’ve merely been human and...

This post Kaizen every day appeared first on Operational Excellence Society.

Hello and welcome to another edition of State of Readiness. I am your host, Joseph Paris.My guest today is Jesse DePriest, President of Jesse DePriest Consulting, LLC; Privately held consultancy specializing in Lean including; strategy development and deployment, leadership development, process design and analysis, process improvement, problem solving, teamwork. I have known Jesse for several...

This post State of Readiness | Jesse DePriest; President of Jesse DePriest Consulting appeared first on Operational Excellence Society.

This article is provided courtesy of theleanmag, a content partner of the Operational Excellence Society. As I engage with both executive teams and board members around the country, I’ve come to gain a depth of understanding of the challenges faced within the machinery of healthcare organizations operating system. Exacerbated by the great resignation and silent quitting...

This post Is your Lean Office at risk? appeared first on Operational Excellence Society.

Most of us read about the recent leadership changes at Toyota. Many industry experts criticized Toyota’s lack of innovation and the gap with Tesla as the main reason for the succession. Despite Toyota’s status as an industry benchmark, we have to ask: Did “lean” impede innovation? My answer is “NO”. I had the opportunity to...

This post Lean Innovation Culture appeared first on Operational Excellence Society.

Summary.   Toyota has fared better than many of its competitors in riding out the supply chain disruptions of recent years. But focusing on how Toyota had stockpiled semiconductors and the problems of other manufacturers, some observers jumped to the conclusion that the era of the vaunted Toyota Production System was over. Not the case, say Toyota...

This post What Really Makes Toyota’s Production System Resilient appeared first on Operational Excellence Society.

This article is provided courtesy of theleanmag, a content partner of the Operational Excellence Society. What I like most about “Lean” or Kaizen is that when you apply it in the correct way and in the way it usually was designed to be implemented, you can make people’s work easier and less stressful. To me that...

This post What if we just break down the walls separating Lean and Agile? appeared first on Operational Excellence Society.

Lean is probably one of the most misunderstood leadership concepts in business, and many people would even question why I would refer to it as a leadership concept. Surely it’s a manufacturing methodology, hence why it’s often referred to as Lean Manufacturing and is the descendent of the Toyota Production System (TPS)? Somehow, and despite...

This post Living Lean appeared first on Operational Excellence Society.

These approaches can also be applied to Continuous Improvement, Lean, or Six Sigma Programs. I started my first business, XONITEK, in August of 1985.   I still own its latest incarnation located in Jackson Wyoming.  Having owned my own businesses for the last 37 years makes me uniquely unemployable.  Perhaps that could change given the right...

This post Best Practices for Designing and Deploying an Operational Excellence Program appeared first on Operational Excellence Society.

This article is provided courtesy of theleanmag, a content partner of the Operational Excellence Society. theleanmag’s strategic goal is to grow and nurture the lean community knowledge sharing. we’re stronger together and knowing more prepares us for the daily struggle “Reflection is the beginning, not the end, of learning.” Do you ever find yourself in the ongoing...

This post The key to effective problem solving? It’s in the study. appeared first on Operational Excellence Society.

This article courtesy of theleanmag, a content partner of the Operational Excellence Society. Ah, so before you get started your first question is “when will we be done?” Seriously, that’s how you think? If it is then my advice is don’t even start. You obviously don’t understand what the term “lean” means so all you...

This post How Much Time Does It Take To Complete a Lean Transformation? appeared first on Operational Excellence Society.

A lot of people already know about Single Minute Exchange of Die (SMED), which is sometimes called Quick Changeover, and the traditional application of it. But anyway, I will briefly explain about the methodology and how to apply it. And then I will tell you about a case where I really had to turn everything...

This post SMED; A Different Perspective appeared first on Operational Excellence Society.

Give a listen… My guest today is Tim Pettry, Program Director for Continuous Improvement at the Cleveland Clinic’s Akron General (CCAG) Hospital where he directs the implementation of a Culture of Improvement for over 5,500 caregivers, utilizing the Cleveland Clinic Improvement Model. One of the biggest “take-aways” of this conversation is the difference in syntax...

This post State of Readiness | Tim Pettry; CI Program Director, Cleveland Clinic appeared first on Operational Excellence Society.

About the Podcast My guest today is Kevin Robinson, Managing Director of OPEX Performance Solutions Ltd and Toyota Alumni; having spent over 28 years at Toyota UK at the Deeside Engine Plant; starting as an Engineer in 1991 and working his way up the ranks until retiring as the General Manager of Manufacturing Operations. Rather...

This post State of Readiness | Kevin Robinson, Toyota Alumni appeared first on Operational Excellence Society.

About the Podcast My guest today is Steven Leuschel, Director of Operational Excellence at Guardian Elder Care, with a network of elderly care facilities located across Western Pennsylvania, West Virginia, and Eastern Ohio. He has published several books including;• “Lean Culture Change: Using a Daily Management System”• “The Executive Guide to Lean Culture Change”, a...

This post State of Readiness: Steven Leuschel; Director of Operational Excellence, Guardian Elder Care appeared first on Operational Excellence Society.

I had a project where I was hired to try to help turn a company around.  The challenges faced existed across the entirety of the company.  In fact, there was no function of the company that was operating at an acceptable level.  This company was very sick. The owner of the company and I made...

This post They are dumb appeared first on Operational Excellence Society.

There was a time when manufacturers talked about just-in-time deliveries of their production inputs (raw materials, components, supplies), then just-in-time-production or lean manufacturing. There is something missing in JIT and lean understanding which intimidates some manufacturers and service providers, and therefore causes them to “give up” without even trying. What do you mean, JIT? Several...

This post What Do You Mean: Just-in-Time? appeared first on Operational Excellence Society.

I invite Aaron Roe, presently the Process Owner of Customer Experience at Roche Diabetes Care, as my guest on this episode of “State of Readiness“. This is a really great conversation full of enthusiasm and passion. Aaron Roe has spent the last 15 years at Roche, holding positions and roles including; Commercial Excellence Director, Business...

This post State of Readiness; Aaron Roe – Global Process Owner at Roche appeared first on Operational Excellence Society.

Lean is being made too confusing for its own good, it’s time to cut the jargon, keep it simple and enjoy the benefits of an engaged and motivated workforce! Having spent three decades at Toyota, we spent little, if any time reading about ‘Lean’. In fact, we never referred to it as Lean, rather the...

This post Even with Lean, Complexity Kills appeared first on Operational Excellence Society.

There was a recent post in the Operational Excellence Group that I own on LinkedIn.  The post was about the National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s (NASA) Lean Six Sigma program and the benefits that were realized.  The person who created the post was rather excited that the program had saved NASA $1.3 million. Reading this...

This post Know what? So what… appeared first on Operational Excellence Society.

When you were born, everyone could see the twinkle in your eyes for the fire and passion you held.  As you grew, you became inspired by the reported accomplishments of others; and consumed with great enthusiasm and dedication every bit of knowledge that was at your disposal.  You had the good fortune of being influenced...

This post Eulogy of a Continuous Improvement Program appeared first on Operational Excellence Society.

Topic:  Okay, the notion was noble, but the presentation might have been better.  If this was an episode of Master Chef with Antlerboy and JP being the wanna-be cooks, we would certainly have presented a repulsive-looking dish, but it tasted darn good. So here’s the story;  Antlerboy and JP had noticed that all of the...

This post Outliers Inn; Lady’s Night appeared first on Operational Excellence Society.

Has there even been a time when customers were more demanding of the companies serving them? Industry 4.0 technologies—many barely imaginable only a decade ago—have already enabled genuine breakthroughs in cost, convenience, and customization, creating extraordinary value for buyers while raising the performance bar for producers ever higher. And then there’s the volatility that never entirely disappears,...

This post Lean management or agile? The right answer may be both appeared first on Operational Excellence Society.

As a manufacturer, we want our defects rate to be as close as possible to the “Six Sigma level, 3.4 defects per million opportunities” (DPMO) on products we fabricate.  A possibly overlooked key is how we manage our suppliers’ defects; what they do with the recovered contents off the parts we reject and return to...

This post Manage Your Suppliers’ Internal Defects appeared first on Operational Excellence Society.

Traditionally in the Service Industry, Operational Excellence (OpEx) focused on the Operations function: Back and Mid Offices fulfilling the client’s request. Main focus was on decreasing handling and throughput time, with techniques like Lean Thinking, Six Sigma and Scientific Management. The goal was mainly to let humans work more efficiently. However, in the last years,...

This post Operational Excellence in a Digital World appeared first on Operational Excellence Society.

We welcome Philip Holt, Vice President of Operational Excellence at GKN Aerospace, for a conversation on State of Readiness.  We start off the program discussing Philip’s two books, “Leading with Lean” and “The Simplicity of Lean”; the latter having won the Bronze Medal in the Axiom Book Awards.  We take a walk in Philip’s shoes...

This post State of Readiness; Philip Holt, GKN Aerospace appeared first on Operational Excellence Society.

One of the biggest challenges of a Lean Transformation is to create the ‘Vision of Excellence’; what should we aim to achieve over the coming years, what is possible? This is often problematic because the majority of people in the organisation ‘don’t know what they don’t know’; that is, they haven’t seen what truly Operationally...

This post Lean Busy vs Ignorant Overload Bliss appeared first on Operational Excellence Society.

This is an except from Chapter-1, Introduction from my book, “The Simplicity of Lean”. Lean means many things to many people and its success or failure is important to a large number of stakeholders: customers, employees, management, shareholders, suppliers, and society as a whole. Is Lean a toolkit? Is it about cost saving? Is it...

This post The Simplicity of Lean appeared first on Operational Excellence Society.

The art of debate has devolved.  No longer is it used as a tool of discovery, understanding, reconciliation, and progress.  Today, it is a tool used to beat one another into submission – with the wholesale surrender of the beliefs and values held by one party over the other being the goal. What’s worse, the...

This post Reading is fundamental, but comprehension is important too appeared first on Operational Excellence Society.