The Operational Excellence Society is a “think tank” that creates and aggregates content for individuals who wish to be high-performance members of high-performance teams at high-performance organizations.
What is Operational Excellence?
We define Operational Excellence as; “a state of readiness that is attained as the efforts throughout the organization reach a state of alignment for achieving its strategies; and where the corporate culture is committed to the continuous and deliberate improvement of company performance AND the circumstances of those who work there – and is precursor to becoming a high-performance organization.“
STOP TEACHING TO THE TEST
Why AI Should Finally Finish the Argument the Calculator Started Somewhere in the mid-1970s, a math teacher stood in front of a classroom and banned the calculator. “You will not always have one of these with you,” she said, tapping the little plastic box like it was contraband. She was wrong. Not eventually wrong — immediately, structurally, permanently wrong. Forty years later, everyone in that classroom carries a calculator, a spreadsheet, a search engine, and a research assistant in their pocket at all times. It is called a phone. We didn’t just get the calculator back. We got Wolfram Alpha,…
Founders Desk Archive
featured articles
The Fault Lies Not in the Stars, but Within Ourselves
I hear all too often from professionals in Continuous Improvement how “Senior Leadership does not give me the support I need”. Some go further by making the claim that “Senior…
Design Thinking for Operational Excellence
I was the Chairman at an Operational Excellence and Business Transformation conference in Amsterdam this past March (2023) which was produced by CParity. The lead-off workshop was on Design Thinking…
The need for both KPIs and OKRs
Headline: “Business Metrics Gone Awry: The Dark Side of Relying Solely on KPIs” Subheading: “Corporate Missteps Highlight the Pitfalls of Blindly Chasing Key Performance Indicators” We read about it all…
Considering the Entire Employee Lifecycle
I wrote an article entitled “The Strategic HR Department” where I shared my thoughts on the characteristics of a Human Resources Department that is strategic with a purpose of being…
The Strategic HR Department
I have been in business, running a consultancy (XONITEK) since 1985. Besides it making me uniquely unemployable, I have had the opportunity to observe and interact with the many incarnations…
Scaling and Sustaining Your Education and Training Program
I have been helping companies design and deploy their Operational Excellence (“OpEx”) and Continuous Improvement (“CI”) programs for a very long time. Mind you, I was not born with this…
Expert Contributors
Biannual Supply Chain Report: Five Trends Shaping the Economic Landscape
From disruption to continual risk. After several years of disruptions, US supply chains are entering a new phase in which they are no longer fixed but expected to be in constant motion. Firms are operating in an environment where trade policy,…
Action items for AI decision makers in 2026
Expect a level-set year and a sharper focus on enterprise value. Artificial intelligence has dominated economic and business attention for the past several years. But the hype cycle is slowing…
The Best Manufacturers Build AI with Workers, Not for Them
Summary. Manufacturers are pushing ahead with AI, but workers often feel unprepared, uncertain, and distrustful. Research shows a clear gap between executive optimism and frontline experience, driven by unclear roles, weak…
Why We Love to Hate HR… and What HR Can Do About It
Five smart moves that will help, by Peter Cappelli Summary. Complaints against Human Resources (HR), which are nothing new, have a cyclical quality. They’re driven largely by the business context. When…
Applying Lean Six Sigma Methods to Litigation Practice
A growing number of law departments and law firms are exploring Lean Six Sigma and similar methodologies to continuously improve the way they deliver legal services. By tailoring these techniques…
Whatever happened to Six Sigma?
GE adopted Six Sigma from Motorola in 1995, and under Jack Welch it became corporate religion. But as GE began a long, slow decline, so did the popularity of Six…
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THOUGHT FOOD
the opex vault
The Set-Up-To-Fail Syndrome
When an employee fails—or even just performs poorly—managers typically do not blame themselves. The employee doesn’t understand the work, a manager might contend. Or the employee isn’t driven to succeed,…
INSIGHT- Profit bonanza eludes companies chasing obesity business
Reuters reports that soaring diabetes rates, driven by increasing obesity, have fuelled profits at the Danish company, Novo Nordisk’s Kalundborg factory for nearly two decades. Now, the company wants to tackle…
The Global Monetary System: Beyond Bretton Woods
You’ll be hard-pressed to find a country that is thrilled with our current global monetary system. Across the board, three complaints tend to arise: the dominance of the dollar as…
One Shift at a Time
Let’s first make an assumption; that the personnel on the production floor were properly informed in absolute terms what the goals of the plant and the company might be and…
