Manufacturing Excellence

The future of operational excellence for manufacturing is not in words like productivity, efficiency, and standardization. It will be in concepts like growth, innovation, and customization. The world is more connected and fast-paced than it has ever been, and the manufacturing industry needs to keep pace.

Based on our work with manufacturing companies all over the world, there are some characteristics that the most successful manufacturers have:

• Seamless end to end integration between the various elements of the supply chain. Products can be tracked and traced all the way from the raw material stage until they are in the hands of the end customer
• Sales, marketing, and research and development are closely linked to the manufacturing process. This ensures alignment between what is being developed, what is being produced, what is being sold to customers.
• Formal management of the innovation and product launch processes. Products are launched on time, with the involvement of all the appropriate departments in the organization
• Collaboration with customers and suppliers to improve results. This means that business partners share strategic direction and help each other achieve it. It also includes the sharing of data and demand forecasts to optimize the manufacturing process.
• People who are cross-trained in various roles. The aim here is to minimize downtime and ensure that organizations are constantly developing key people. This strategy becomes most effective when the right people are hired in the first place.
• Processes that focus on speed optimization

One of the biggest opportunities we see with manufacturing organizations is to ensure operations are able to keep up with sales. Too often we see organizations focus on ways to increase sales, attract new customers, and enter new markets, but then become overwhelmed in trying to meet all of the new demand that has been generated for their products.

What are you doing to ensure that your supply equals demand without sacrificing the quality of what you offer?