Operational Excellence by Design^SM

Issue: 4

April 2013

“Operational Excellence is when the efforts throughout the organization are in 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 – to pursue ‘Operational Excellence by Design‘ and not by coincidence.”

-Joseph F Paris Jr; Chairman, XONITEK® Group of Companies

“The Operational Excellence Manifesto“

Biography Linked-In Blog Executive-Team

CHAIRMAN’S PERSPECTIVES

Business Rule #1: The customers have a choice…Make sure they pick you!

By Joseph Paris; Chairman, XONITEK Group of Companies

For every company, it’s a jungle out there…

Every day, every moment, you are either the hunter or the hunted. The strong and the skilled survive while the weak get cut from the herd to be killed and eaten – or just fall back and left to die.

And the pace gets quicker each and every day. Advances in technologies, the implementation of leaner processes, and improvements in business structures and practices – all serve to eliminate the sources of friction that sap energy and slow the pace of business and commerce. Innovations easily turn yesterday’s cutting-edge into today’s footnotes in the history books.

But each and every day also brings new opportunity to hone your skills, increase your value-proposition, and improve your chances to survive – even thrive, if but for a time.

It’s not easy; in fact it’s damn hard. But the opportunities do exist.

As in Al Pacino’s locker room speech in “Any Given Sunday“, the opportunities (“inches”) are all around us.

However, a business must have a capable team that is emotionally invested and believes in the vision of the business – as well as in the leadership and one another – so that, bit by bit, those opportunities can be recognized, vigorously pursued, and realized.

Click here for full article…

OPERATIONAL EXCELLENCE

Leadership, Culture and the Situation of Marissa Mayer

By David M. Kasprzak

Marissa Mayer, CEO of Yahoo, sent a shock wave across the internet and the blogosphere recently when she announced that Yahoo’s policy of allowing people to work remotely would be ended, and that remote-working employees would need to begin reporting to the office by June 2013.

The debate has raged over the wisdom of the move, with a heaping ton of criticism coming from culture-change advocates who point to research indicating that remote work programs are beneficial, while the other side of the coin points to lost engagement and productivity.

Click here for full article…

Don’t Manage Factories; Design them to Run “Autonomously”

By Kevin J. Duggan

Imagine this scenario: A customer gives us an order, the factory produces the products, and the order ships, autonomously, without any management intervention. No meetings, no expedites, no shifting priorities, no direction setting. Like turning a key to start your car engine, it just happens.

Sound like a dream? It’s not. Many companies have achieved a state where the people who build the product understand the flow to the customer and can correct that flow when it becomes abnormal. And it didn’t happen through Kaizen, brainstorming, or other Continuous Improvement techniques. It happened by design.

Click here for full article…

TRUST ME – I’M AN ENGINEER

The Lighter-Side…

(click on picture to enlarge)

Contact the Editor

You are getting this eNewsletter because; you subscribed, are a member of one of the internet communities managed by XONITEK, or met someone from XONITEK. Please feel free to contact me if you have any questions or comments related to this publication – or if you might be interested in submitting an article for consideration in the eNewsletter.

Sincerely,

Trinity DeMars – Editor & Director of Operations

DeMarsTK@xonitek.com

PROFESSIONAL ORGANIZATIONS

Featured Events

ACG Intergrowth 2013

April 22-25

Orlando, Florida

Joseph Paris & Rick Hulse will be in attendance representing Frankfurt and NYC.

Webinar: Best Practices in Project Benefit Validation

April 18th at 2PM EDT

An interactive session with Operational Excellence leader Julie Brignac. Identifying project benefits and estimating an accurate return on investment (ROI) can be very challenging for most organizations.

Click here to attend FREE Webinar

Operational Excellence Society

Click to Join!