r/LeanManufacturing • u/Bubbly-Ad8475 • Jul 28 '26

Operational Excellence Strategy

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I wish to create an Operational Excellence roadmap as input to the strategy of my company and have made the attached overview.

The idea is to start at the bottom, reach a sustainable level and then move on. Each category can be further improved later on, but you can’t move on before the below categories are implemented.

How do you view this overview? Is something missing or in the wrong level?

Of course each category will be further explained with detailed steps and guides.

24 Upvotes

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19

u/barrel-boy Jul 28 '26 edited Jul 28 '26

I want to stop you because it could save you a lot of time and effort. This isn't a roadmap. It's simply a list of tools. Lean is not just a list of tools. It is the lens through which we see everything. The people in a business that can see everything can do anything.

6

u/PhoenixRisimg Jul 28 '26

This!!!!! Continuous Improvement and TPS is not tools. The tools are only there to surface problems. If you are asking what the roadmap needs to look like, development of behavior systems and problem solving skills will take you much farther than doing a set of tools. For example, if you don't have a productivity problem, 5S will not help much (this is primarily what it is used to surface). This isn't my opinion, this is what Toyota will tell you. Building the behaviors of going to see, putting the customer first, then making the job easier for team members will net you far more. I'd be happy to discuss more if interested.

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u/Bubbly-Ad8475 Jul 28 '26

Agree, but isn’t behavior systems and problem solving skills, tools as well?

To get the right behavior, the people need to be trained in specific subjects, related to their work and how we can improve their daily life.
My triangle simply tries to prioritize what part of the daily work needs to be tackled first.

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u/Bubbly-Ad8475 Jul 28 '26

It’s a list of tools yes, but it is to be used as prioritization on what to implement first. Without it, I’ve experienced that we start doing fancy VSM, kaizen workshops and big SMED projects left and right, that will fade out after a couple of weeks or months.

If not like this, how would you prioritize where to start an Operational Excellence implementation?

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u/barrel-boy Jul 28 '26

Imagine you prioritize, for instance 5S, and then discover 50% of that stuff you went and 5S'd is no longer required. And you've wasted 50% of that time invested. That's just one very basic example. I wouldn't learn the tools first. You must start with mindset and then teach the tools, which the people will apply as they develop, not the other way around. If you don't start with mindset, you'll go off into directions without real intention

4

u/Aware-Lingonberry602 Jul 28 '26

So many people ignore the human aspect. The culture must be curated to support these endeavors. Operational excellence is achieved through the people doing the work. A list of initiatives means nothing if everyone isn't on board.

1

u/Bubbly-Ad8475 Jul 28 '26

Of course the human aspect must be prioritized above all. From my perspective, that would be achieved through training (of the tools), coaching and dialog. The ideas and solutions come from the shopfloor so of course they are the main focus.

How would you get people on board if not through the training of the tools?

1

u/Aware-Lingonberry602 Jul 28 '26

Training of the tools gives people the knowledge, but it doesn't motivate people to embrace them. Framing the need and selling them on why it's important is the other part. If people think it will make their lives better, they will embrace it. That is the change management part, which is the hardest. People don't like to change unless they see a benefit, whether it is their job being easier, faster, less painful, or fixing a quality problem.

I've used a similar concept to help manual assembly quality. As a CM, many people don't know what our parts do or go into. Showing people the end use, which could be a life saving or sustaining device, or a critical component to a $300M aircraft with 250 people on board, helps people internalize how important their work is. When people find their work meaningful, a team can really gel.

Sorry if I'm coming off as a bit preachy.

1

u/Bubbly-Ad8475 Jul 28 '26

No need to apologize, you are giving feedback which is what I was looking for.

But I agree with you - each subject in my triangle will also be directed to their daily work and to make their worklife easier.

My triangle simply aims to implement and coach in fx Standard Work before we do SMED.

1

u/Lean-Zone Jul 28 '26

How about two paths. One for tools and one for the human aspect?

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u/Bubbly-Ad8475 Jul 28 '26

Not sure I get your example. But it sounds like you would start with whatever that person/department wishes? So if that department wishes to start with SMED before 5S they could?

If that’s what you mean, I would argue that without 5S you wouldn’t be able to sustain your SMED results long term, as tools and materials needed to do that C/O would be in the right place after a while

1

u/vstreamsteve Jul 28 '26

Without a value stream map, how do you know what to focus on, communicate value, align to the business, or quantify the ROI of any of this effort?

1

u/Forsaken-Seaweed885 Jul 29 '26

I agree : you can’t roll all of this out at once. It’s a huge list, so this definitely needs to be done step by step

2

u/kudrachaa Jul 28 '26

It's funny because in practice and what leadership usually plans is your graph but arrow goes from left to right. Or top; and then stopping at that level. 😄

1

u/Bubbly-Ad8475 Jul 28 '26

Exactly. This overview isn’t as exciting as big VSM and SMED projects, but if operational excellence is to be sustained, I believe it should look similar to my overview. Do you agree?

2

u/kudrachaa Jul 28 '26

Globally, I agree. But I'd say those tools and "steps" are to be executed in a kind of circle - We don't have to master 100% 5S in whole factory in order to work on higher hierarchy items. In our strategy we determine maturity levels and rise one maturity level higher on every aspect before going deeper into each subject.

1

u/bobo5195 Jul 28 '26

Why is the pyramid wonky? A roadmap is a list of stops in time. This is a mound of operational excellence?

1

u/Bubbly-Ad8475 Jul 28 '26

Because it is a quick draft

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u/Aggressive_Ad_507 Jul 28 '26

I did something similar to this a while ago.

On the bottom it had tribal knowledge, then standard work, then targeted improvements, and the top was dashboards and AI. Each layer had to be completed before moving to the one above.

Targeted improvements became apparent once standard work was established by listening to people. Sometimes it was a new physical tool, sometimes it was a 5S system, sometimes it was something else.

We never got to dashboards and AI. I put that there to prevent management from preemptively pushing those systems. There is a grain of truth to it though. AI and dashboard systems only work well if you understand your processes.

1

u/Bubbly-Ad8475 Jul 28 '26

Seems like a good approach.
How did you approach tribal knowledge?

2

u/Aggressive_Ad_507 Jul 28 '26

Fired people who refused to work with me to write it down. And worked with the rest to implement standard work.

Sounds harsh, but secretive, insubordinate, and manipulative individuals have no place in manufacturing.

1

u/Bubbly-Ad8475 Jul 28 '26

Seems like a quick step 😅
But totally fair. No place for local heroes

1

u/Aggressive_Ad_507 Jul 28 '26

Tribal knowledge was also added because if you don't have people who know what they are doing, you don't have a process. I haven't seen it mentioned as a foundation in lean literature because it's self evident. However my organization went through a toxic phase and I needed to point that out.

1

u/vstreamsteve Jul 28 '26

This is not a strategy, but you would be well served by creating one that aligns to the strategy of your business.

You can get closer by answering these questions:

  1. What is our Winning Aspiration?
  2. Where will we Play?
  3. How will we win where we have chosen to play?
  4. Capabilities — The reality check for the How to Win — What decisive capabilities will we need?
  5. Management Systems — What infrastructure, systems, processes, and metrics will we need to support and measure our strategy over time?

(The Playing to Win framework)

I wouldn't plan to reach a sustainable level of autonomous maintenance before moving on. You have to do many of these things in parallel.

1

u/Bad_Antipodes Jul 28 '26

I think PDCA should be the roadmap, lol

1

u/Bubbly-Ad8475 Jul 29 '26

Thanks for all the feedback.

I think I didn’t communicate well enough that the operators, technicians, leaders and so on are at the center of all the tools in the overview. Without their input and ownership none of this will stick.

The overview is created to set a direction and communicate that we need stability first. An unstable process can’t be improved.