Outstanding operational gains have been achieved by companies that have embedded the operational excellence philosophies, principals, methodologies and tools into their business; however, the objectives and goals of the organizations cannot be realized solely from within the controls of their business. Certain specific major gains require a business to migrate operational excellence programs beyond their four walls and into their extended enterprises.
The Strategy-to-Execution Framework plays an enabling role in the ability to optimize the flow of products and services from concept design to the point-of-use, taking into consideration both internal and external processes in the supply chain. This approach involves additional skills and techniques from traditional supplier and customer relationship management. In particular, it requires that business managers learn to see the value stream and the sequence of value creating steps required to generate demand, develop new products and services, and fulfill customer needs while learning to remove the waste, mistakes, and rigidities from the supply chain.
Guided by mentors, we link the enterprise objectives with both customers and suppliers action plans necessary to achieve "breakthrough" objectives. Supply Chain managers will challenge all assumptions about the status quo regarding pricing, quality, delivery, and flexibility levels offered by the current suppliers. The client through the eyes of their customers examines these key performance dimensions. Suppliers and all members of the extended enterprise work to create win-win relationships and linkage within an execution oriented supply-base by focusing on the shared value creation process that flows from the supplier, through the enterprise and into the customer and or an end user.
A transformation to operational excellence ultimately means examining every extended enterprise process, subjecting the enterprise to an Enterprise Value Stream Analysis, standardizing this revised process, and embedding it into the various customer, supplier and value creation activities that represent the work of the organization and its functions.