We recently had the opportunity to speak with the two co-founders of TheConsultantLounge.com, Laura Woodroof (picture on the right below) and Martina Segerer. TheConsultantLounge is an online and offline community for smart and passionate management consultants who were looking to expand their network and share their experiences across the broader consulting ecosystem. Both Laura and Martina are seasoned consultants with combined […]
Archive | Operations & Supply Chain RSS feed for this section
Flevy’s Definitive Guide to Operations
This is a guide to navigating Flevy to find the documents and other resources you need related to Business Operations. “Operations” is a broad, vague term. It can convey a lot of different meanings to different people. If you don’t find what you are looking for in this article, please email us at support@flevy.com. First, a very […]
How Top 1% Businesses Measure Their Success
Many of us have heard the old adage “What gets measured gets done.” Organisations are awash with KPIs–key performance indicators. Variously attributed to 19th Century UK Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli and American author Mark Twain the oft-quoted phrase, “There are lies, damned lies and statistics,” reflects justified cynicism about the cult of measurement. The greatest […]
Lean Initiatives in the Office
Why implement Lean in the Office? If you think Lean only applies to industry and manufacturing processes, you are wrong! Here’s why: The operational efficiency of a company should not be simply restricted to the “production” side of the activity. The rapid delivery and manufacture of products is never enough if your clients are waiting […]
The Global 8D Problem Solving Process
“If I had an hour to save the world I would spend 59 minutes defining the problem and one minute finding solutions.” – Albert Einstein The 8D (Eight Disciplines) Problem Solving Process is a team oriented and structured problem solving methodology that is mainly used to identify, correct and eliminate recurring problems. The 8D Problem […]
What Are Balanced Scorecards?
Balanced Scorecards tell you the knowledge, skills and systems that your employees will need (learning and growth) to innovate and build the right strategic capabilities and efficiencies (internal processes) that deliver specific value to the market (customer) which will eventually lead to higher shareholder value (financial). –– Robert Kaplan & David Norton In 1990, Art […]
Dump the Waste!
Sharpen your Competitive Edge by Eliminating Non-Value-Added Activities in your Organization. Recession or boom, companies need to sharpen their competitive edge by applying Lean Management principles to cost reduction – that is, the elimination of non-value-added activities or waste from the value stream processes. Be Lean In the Lean Management philosophy, all activities in an organization […]
Find the Constraint… Find the Money
The question I am asked most often by business owners and students is “how can Lean Six Sigma improve business?” My answer is very simple and always the same–find the constraints… find the money. What is keeping product from reaching the customer faster? These are the constraints–find them–remove them–and watch profits soar. It sounds easy, […]
What Is Operational Excellence?
Perfection is not attainable, but if we chase perfection we can catch excellence. – Vince Lombardi In “The Discipline of Market Leaders – Choose your Customers, Narrow your Focus, Dominate your Market,” Michael Treacy and Fred Wiersema describe three distinct value propositions or disciplines an organization can choose to compete in their market or industry–Operational […]
Make Change That Lasts
Change is the only constant. – Heraclictus, Greek Philosopher Change is the only constant in the work environment Whether you are shifting office to another location, adopting a new practice or process, implementing an IT system, or re-engineering the business processes for an organization, change happens to everyone all the time. However, many change initiatives have been short-lived as […]
Training Within Industry (TWI) – The Foundation of Standardized Work & Continuous Improvement
In September 1990, my colleague and I participated in a technical training program for instructors held at the Panasonic Overseas Training Center and the Production Engineering College in Osaka, Japan for a period of two months. Waiting for the Shinkansen bound for Osaka During that time, we were newly hired technical training instructors at the […]
Why Lean Initiatives Fail in a Company (Part 2)
Note from the Editor: This is the second of a series of articles written by Charles Intrieri related to Lean Initiatives. The previous article can be found here and we suggest you read it first, if you haven’t already. You can read his other articles here. * * * * If you recall, from the first article on Lean, the […]
