Operational Excellence

In essence, Operational Excellence (OE) means performing exceptionally well at what matters most and getting better all the time.  Purposeful economic performance and organizational health matter most, for every business, along with the disciplines and practices for consistently making well informed decisions and monitoring progress and performance on both fronts.

Lots of other elements tend to get jumbled into OE definitions (e.g., safety, quality, leadership, customer centricity, and employee involvement, among several others). Most of these potential distractions fall into two categories, either: (a) the desirable results of OE or (b) the subordinate necessary conditions for OE.  Vision21 helps business leaders focus attentions on achieving what matters most, together with ongoing improvement, using the tools and techniques that work best as a systems approach to the process of ongoing improvement (POOGI), namely the Theory of Constraints (TOC).

Lean, Six Sigma and Agile disciplines frequently get touted as enablers of OE.  Lean seeks to eliminate waste.  Six Sigma seeks to eliminate variation.  Agile seeks speedy, iterative, responsiveness, especially in software development and project management contexts.  All three may contribute to economic performance and/or organizational health.  Nevertheless, TOC proves superior in its rapid high-value impact, with low(er) resource needs.

When asked: “Does TOC compare favorably to Lean, Six Sigma, and Agile disciplines?” Gen AI-assisted search, perplexity.ai, concluded:

“Overall, TOC compares very favorably and is often most powerful when intelligently integrated with Lean, Six Sigma, or Agile practices depending on the context and constraints faced by the organization.”

Vision21 helps business leaders achieve Operational Excellence that funds itself and generates free cash flow.  TOC’s Throughput Accounting discipline uses three unambiguous economic performance metrics, and simple arithmetic calculations, therefrom, to inform ongoing improvement decisions and to measure progress and performance, against expectations, thereafter.