In today’s world, the business landscape is evolving like never before. That being said, if you want to improve your overall business productivity, you need to improve operational excellence by setting feasible goals, lowering your operational cost, enhancing efficiency, bettering quality, and increasing revenues compared to the competitors.
Just like an Engineer designs an automobile or a spaceship, you also need to design your own operational strategies for your business according to some operational excellence principles.
In today’s article, we will show you eight effective operational principles to grow your business with consistency. Without further adieu, let’s dig deeper.
Principle #1: Design lean value streams
To improve your business’ operational excellence, you need to design an end to end lean value streamflow. While preparing the streamflow, make sure that it includes all the phases when a customer places an order for a product or service to the time when it is delivered to the destination.
The key to this principle is that every process is connected to each other. You just need to be aware that there is nothing disconnected and make sure to remove all the obstacles.
Principle #2: Make lean value streams flow
In this stage, you need to take the design from your paper to the real-world scenario where you will have to implement a self-value stream for the purpose to create an Operational Excellence.
To do so, you need to arrange:
- formal training (Which will include a review of the current-state value stream map)
- the eight guidelines for flow
- implement the value streams guidelines to the intended value stream.
- and finally the implementation plan.
In this strategy, most employees of your organization will be taught the common goal of the business growth as well as the ultimate goal of the Operational Excellence
Principle #3: Make flow visual
Now that you have taken the design to the reality and have made the framework to flow, in this step, you have to make a visual representation of the flow so that your employees can understand how the processes are interconnected and it reaches to the customer.
Principle #4: Create standard work for flow
Next, you will have to apply the concept of the standard work to the flow. You can establish this standard work between the processes. In this regard, you can establish the standard work focusing on the connections of the processes.
By establishing the standard work to the processes and between the processes, you will be able to stabilize the complete end-to-end flow. By doing so, it will be easier for you to create normalcy for the entire flow and reduce the variation.
Principle #5: Make abnormal flow visual
Before any abnormal flow takes place, every employee should be able to see them from all along. When you firmly define and establish the normal flow (first four principles), your employees will be able to see the abnormal flows not just at the moment it is happening but before the moment it takes place.
By making the abnormal flow visual, we can keep the flow normal by discerning the flaws and correcting it immediately.
Principle #6: Create standard work for abnormal flow
Unfortunately, the flow that you have established will eventually break down no matter how much you teach your employees or exert efforts to maintain it properly.
If such standstills come out of the way, you can employ a supervisor to get the flow back on track. In order to do, you have to determine the time when the first-line management needs to take over in the event of any abnormal flow.
In this case, you can provide the top management responses (as a predetermined set of actions) to allow the supervisor to take immediate action so that there is no need to seek approval from the top-level managers.
It’s one of the best operational excellence principles
Principle #7: Have employees in the flow improve the flow
This principle initiates automatically right after the moment the value of a product is delivered to the customer. In order to achieve operational excellence, you need to improve the level of performance. You can use a set of proven continuous improvement tools.
By gauging the performance of the employees, you can get the most out of them which allows you to extract the full essence from them.
This way, you can ensure the maximum output from the human resources which is a key to the attainment of the overall business growth and operational excellence.
Principle #8: Perform Offense Activities
As operational excellence is all about business growth. The management can even take time away from executing these principles and can channel it to business growth.
You can do this by eliminating or reducing the activities- by which the operation management delivers your product to the customers.
Bonus Tips on Operational Excellence Principles
These operational principles are just the direction to set your own business strategies. And setting up these strategies is a never-ending process. This means you will have to continuously improve the processes and strategies with the passage of time.
You can also improve your business strategies. To apply these principles in your business strategy, you can also use an ERP tool and a project management tool. Which will help you gain your expected business operational excellence in a great way.
