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
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…
Choose Your Hard
Life is a never-ending stream of decisions. From the moment we wake up in the morning to the time we go to sleep, we are making decisions. Even the very…
The Importance of a Project Review Board
A key to success in any Operational Excellence or Continuous Improvement program will be found in the way opportunities for improvement are harvested and prioritized; and how well the projects…
You Are Unique, but Not Special
In my article, “Build Organizational Capacity and Capability – For Free”, I listed several root-causes for training and education programs reaching a “stall speed” and a detailed approach for avoiding…
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…
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
You Don’t Need More Space
I’ve been on numerous plants tours over the past few decades. Eventually the tour winds up in either the warehouse or stockroom or both. At some point, I’ll ask whether…
OEE: The Most Misused and Abused Indicator
The concept of Overall Equipment Effectiveness was first written about in 1989 from a book called TPM Development Program – Implementing Total Productive Maintenance, edited by Seiichi Nakajima from the…
Joseph DeSimone: What if 3D printing was 100x faster
Chemist, inventor & CEO of Carbon3D, Joseph DeSimone, has made more than one significant breakthrough contributions to the field of 3D printing. From his perspective, 3D printing is really nothing more than…
China loses its allure
The building of the first Coke bottling plant in China since the Communist revolution, was part of a series of changes that turned the country into one of the biggest…
