High Performance Operations: Leverage Compliance to Lower Costs, Increase Profits, and Gain Competitive Advantage

11. Operational Excellence

A Definition for Operational Excellence

The term “operational excellence” has been used a lot throughout the book; however, there has yet to be a chapter devoted to it. Now that you have much more context to work with, we can discuss operational excellence as a well-demarcated state and not some vague aspiration. Until now, discussion of operational excellence was mostly ephemeral. This chapter takes a more concrete look at what operational excellence is.

It’s as important to describe what operational excellence is not as it is to describe what operational excellence is. Jumping into a discussion about the desired attributes of operational excellence without discussing the undesirable characteristics would set a dangerous ...