Written by: James Rink, EdD, Director, QRM Center, UW–Madison
Operational excellence isn’t very excellent all that often.
That may sound blunt, but it reflects a pattern I have seen across industries. Organizations invest heavily in tools and systems intended to improve performance. Yet, the outcomes often fall short, especially when viewed through the lens of the customer or the employee experience.
One of the underlying issues is that operational excellence in the U.S. can take on a flavor-of-the-month dynamic. We become captivated by the latest methodology or toolset. Lean, automation, digital transformation, and AI all promise improvement. These approaches have real value, but they are often applied with a narrow focus on the tools rather than the outcomes they are meant to achieve.
In that shift, we can lose sight of two critical stakeholders. The customer and the employee.
When Tools Become the Focus
It is not uncommon to see organizations measuring success through internal metrics such as utilization, efficiency, or cost reduction. On paper, performance appears strong. Processes are optimized, resources are fully loaded, and systems are running as designed.
Step back and ask a different question: How quickly and reliably are we responding to customer needs?
In many cases, the answer is far less impressive. Lead times remain long. Variability creates unpredictability. Work moves slowly across functional boundaries. What looks efficient locally often results in delays and friction at the system level.
This is where operational excellence begins to drift. We optimize pieces of the system without improving the system itself.
The Overlooked Role of Time and Flow
One of the most underutilized competitive levers in manufacturing is speed. Not speed in the sense of working harder, but speed in the sense of reducing lead time and improving responsiveness.
Quick Response Manufacturing (QRM) emphasizes time as the primary performance metric. This reinforces a focus on time as a primary driver of performance. When organizations begin to measure and manage time through concepts such as Manufacturing Critical Path Time (MCT), they often uncover opportunities that traditional metrics obscure.
Reducing lead time improves more than delivery performance. It simplifies planning, reduces variability, and improves alignment across the organization. It also improves customer satisfaction and employee experience. Work becomes more predictable, priorities become clearer, and the system becomes easier to manage.
Cost and efficiency are important. They just cannot be the only metrics that guide behavior.
Simplify Before You Automate
Another common pattern is the push toward automation and digital solutions without first addressing underlying process complexity.
Technology can be a powerful enabler. However, when applied to a system that is already complex or poorly aligned, it often locks in those issues rather than resolving them.
The principle is straightforward. Simplify before you automate.
Organizations that reduce complexity, align workflows, and clarify decision-making tend to see far greater returns from their technology investments. Those who do not often find themselves managing more complex versions of the same problems.
The Lesson Many Overlook
There is a reason Toyota has historically been willing to share many of its tools and methods openly. The tools themselves are not the source of advantage.
The real differentiation is how people think and how they engage in improving the system.
Operational excellence is not a toolkit. It is a way of operating that depends on people understanding the system and being empowered to act.
After all-employee meetings, I was often asked how I stayed level-headed when things got tense.
We were often communicating changes that affected how people worked, and it was easy to see the reaction in the room as resistance.
There is an old phrase about a turtle on a fencepost. If you see a turtle on a fencepost, it did not get there on its own. Someone put it there.
The same is true in organizations. The reactions you see are shaped by prior decisions, communication patterns, and leadership behaviors. In many cases, the system we created shaped how people show up.
That connects directly to why operational excellence often falls short.
We can design the right process and implement the right tools. But if people do not understand the change, do not see how it connects to their work, or do not feel heard, the system will not perform as intended.
In those meetings, the issue was rarely just the change itself. At times, we had not communicated or listened enough, and sometimes the pace of change was more than people could absorb in the moment.
Operational excellence is often treated as a problem-solving methodology. It is about people working within a system, not separate from it.
If the people side is not working, the system is not working, no matter what the metrics say.
Rethinking the Approach
For organizations looking to move beyond incremental improvement, a few shifts can make a meaningful difference.
- Measure time, not just cost. Lead time and responsiveness provide a more complete view of system performance.
- Focus on system outcomes. Avoid optimizing individual functions at the expense of overall flow.
- Simplify before investing in technology. Ensure the underlying process supports the intended outcome.
- Align around people. Build understanding, capability, and ownership at all levels of the organization.
Closing Thought
Operational excellence should not be defined by the tools an organization uses, but by the outcomes it consistently delivers.
When we refocus on time, flow, and people, and reconnect our efforts to the customer’s needs, we move closer to what operational excellence was always intended to be.
At that point, it has a much better chance of being excellent.