What Is Operational Excellence?

This is a question often asked by people from all fields in a company. Operational excellence is simply a philosophy that focuses on methodical problem solving and leadership as the keys to continuous improvement. It is not, however, a set of activities that you perform. It’s a mindset that should be present within you and your employees.

Operational Excellence vs. Continuous Improvement:

Continuous improvement is the ongoing effort to improve a process, product or service. By applying continuous improvement, there is a greater likelihood to maintain consistent progress. While continuous improvement is important, it is not enough on its own. As we refine a process or service, it needs to continue to grow throughout the entire value chain of the company.

This is where operational excellence comes in to play.

Operational excellence is achieved when every member of an organization can see the flow of value to the customer and actively try to improve that value and its delivery.

2018 – OpEx in A.L. Group in a Brief:

Establishment of the ALB OpEx team to perform value stream-mapping to define our roadmap for improving production.

Piloting our methodologies in the pleating department of our Bulgarian factory, yielded the following results:

1.Passing the audit of a global market leader customer with flying colors and being given a very positive feedback. They told us they want to see same changes in our other production sites.

2.Eliminating the need to purchase a new machine in pleating department.

3.PU – double the QTY produced-per-month in Bulgaria.

4.53% increase in qty/man-hour in pleating department in Bulgaria.

5.5S implementation and continuous improvements in pleating department in Bulgaria

6.SMED in the changeover process in pleating dep. (reducing changeover time by 63%)

2019 Global OpEx Plan:

1.Continue to implement OpEx methods in Bulgarian production and supply chain (visual management, daily and weekly routines, Gemba, SFM, etc.)

2.Kickoff the global OpEx forum for sharing best practices between all production sites

4.Lean training and VSM in China production for building the OpEx roadmap for our Chinese production site

Our main goal remains the same: to provide our customers with the best quality products and services!