Achieving, improving and sustaining Operational Excellence is a complex, long term endeavor. It requires consistency and the ability to balance a broad set of principles, systems and tools. No wonder, companies often struggle with what to focus on and in which sequence. Therefore I have summarized the most critical Operational Excellence tools not be compromised in any implementation journey.
In more than 20 years of lean transformations I have learned, there is no “one size fits all”, rather a high need for customization and figuring out the path while you are walking – needless to say, with a clear direction, a good plan and consequent PDCA. This is why it is crucial to know, where it is ok and even needed to customize and where you have your non negotiables: the most critical Operational Excellence Tools that will decide about the long term success of your implementation.
If you would be allowed to bring 1 critical Operational Excellence tool only – which one would you pick?
So lets do a thinking experiment: If you would force me to decide for one and one tool only to focus on in an Operational Excellence implementation – here is my choice: Problem solving.
Problem solving the #1 most critical Operational Excellence Tool
Creating a living breathing system of continuous Improvement is the ultimate target of all Operational Excellence Systems. PDCA is a basic daily practice to establish throughout the entire organisation to be able to achieve this. And to make it doable, graspable and visual, you need a simple, structured and standardized problem solving process.
The importance of Problem solving can not be over exaggerated. It is often called the “silver bullet” of Operational Excellence implementation (and yes, the relevance of silver bullets can be debated, but this is another story).
What do we mean with Problem solving?
In every organization there are problems solved on a daily base. One could argue, solving problems – internal and external – is the core task of every business. But what, if you could solve problems in a way where:
- Recognizing problems is welcomed and appreciated?
- Everybody in the organisation knows what to do when a problem appears?
- Everybody is willing to grab a problem and do what is in their possibility to bring it to a permanent solution?
- Once a problem is addressed, it is solved in a way where it is not appearing again?
To achieve this, you need two things: First, a problem solving culture that allows all of this. In short, this is a culture where people have internalized, that “problems are blessings”. Problems show you, where you are
- not following your standards
- have not trained people well enough
- have not communicated well enough
- have not seen the complete picture
- have weak links in your process
- have your improvement potential
- …
The second thing you need is a structured and standardized Problem solving process everybody, no matter where in the organisation, knows how to apply:
This sounds very simple. But think about, how often it happens in your daily business reality, that one of those steps is not completed or jumped over when a problem occurs and the pressure goes up. A simple problem solving tool helps to remind people of all the steps, stay on track and onboard other people in the organisation who are needed to solve the problem. It furthermore allows leaders to know where and how to coach their team members or when they need to get involved themselves. And this is what makes it to one of the most critical operational excellence tools.
There are different templates for simple problem solving tools, often referred to as “A3 problem solving”. A basic rule is, that the more simple it is, the better it will work. So the minimum standard should be, to visualize all five steps of the process and make it easy to see the status. The less info needed for this, the better. Avoid adding lots of “also good to know” info. The template is a useful standard to support the training and continuous improvement of the process.
Simple Continuous Improvements – the #2 most critical Operational Excellence Tool
A tool for simple, fast and unbureaucratic continuous improvement would be the second tool in the list of most critical Operational Excellence tools. With this, you have – from a tool perspective – almost all basics in place to build and maintain a successful Operational Excellence system. This enables you to eliminate waste and get better day after day. The 3 most critical tools for Operational Excellence are also described in the Culture Model of effective production systems:
A final remark: If you have followed my earlier blogs, you know that tools are important, but an over-focus on tools can be problematic. For more info: The 7 most common lean mistakes.
