Abstract
Globalization of business accompanied with increased margin squeeze has been leading many companies in western Europe during the last decade to deploy substantial Operational Excellence (OPEX) programs to remain competitive. Mainly proven Six Sigma and Lean techniques for quality and process improvement have been adopted however with variable lasting success. What are the reasons for success or failure? Which are the applied approaches? What are the circumstances leading to the outcome? This paper shows that management competence as well as the selected approach is decisive for success or failure. In addition, an optimized deployment approach to achieve a sustainable implementation of the OPEX program is presented.
Highlights
To be successful one needs to know the rules of the game and play better than the others
We show a non exhaustive list of potential initiatives: - Systems re-engineering. - Total quality management. - Application of partial six sigma concepts. - Restricted lean-type initiatives. - Six Sigma DMAIC problem solving. - 8D approach. - Lean Six Sigma DMAIC. - Lean introduction. - Lean transformation
The problem resolution is based on Green Belt (GB) and Black Belt (BB) Lean Six Sigma (LSS) teams, where GB and BB are denoting the mastering degree of analysis and reso
Summary
To be successful one needs to know the rules of the game and play better than the others. On the wave of success of Lean and Six Sigma techniques, mainly in the assembly-based industry environment, the dissemination of these principles expanded to other businesses, such as metal transformation, pharma, and other industrial companies, and to service companies, such as banking, insurance and telecom It reached the transactional support departments, i.e. sales, accounting, human resources and so on. Ble to the contingent circumstances of the business and the management, as we will see later In service companies, this may be ascribed to the fact that the manufacturing tailored tools cannot be transferred to office jobs without reinterpreting the tools, or their application has been limited in the past to merely eliminate waste in the transaction processes: we have to pinpoint that the relational Office Model does not correspond to the procedural Shopfloor Model [7]. The focus will be on the deployment approach rather than on the boundary conditions, such as deployment organization and resource dedication, which are well treated in the literature and in internet blogs
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