TITLE:
Reasons for Operational Excellence Deployment Failures and How to Avoid Them
AUTHORS:
Bruno G. Rüttimann, Martin T. Stöckli
KEYWORDS:
Operational Excellence, Lean, Six Sigma, OPEX Deployment
JOURNAL NAME:
Journal of Service Science and Management,
Vol.8 No.4,
August
24,
2015
ABSTRACT: Globalization of business accompanied with increased margin squeeze has been leading many companies in western Europe during the last decade to deploy substantial Operational Excellence (OPEX) programs to remain competitive. Mainly proven Six Sigma and Lean techniques for quality and process improvement have been adopted however with variable lasting success. What are the reasons for success or failure? Which are the applied approaches? What are the circumstances leading to the outcome? This paper shows that management competence as well as the selected approach is decisive for success or failure. In addition, an optimized deployment approach to achieve a sustainable implementation of the OPEX program is presented.