What does Operational Excellence mean to you?

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Over the last few years, I have heard the term “operational excellence” become more frequently used. I always thought I knew exactly what it meant: “making your operations run at peak performance.” However, as I heard the term used more often it seemed to also be used to encompass a wider variety of applications and circumstances, so I thought I would do some research to find out exactly how “operational excellence” was defined. That turned out to be a huge undertaking since there are so many definitions. However, I was able to see some clear themes that would lead to my own definition. It is clear that results are important, as is consistency, efficiency & effectiveness.

Taking Operational Excellence to the next level

Since my experience has been shaped by the process industries, I will say that in my opinion, this is my best guess at the definition of “operational excellence” as it applies to process engineering.

Operational Excellence is the attainment of efficient, effective & reliable operations to achieve optimal profitability for the process. However, operational excellence will only get you the results you desire if you are focused on the right business strategy.  Operational Excellence at producing product A is great, however, when product B is preferred, you are missing out.

It is also important to understand that Operational Excellence isn’t achieved overnight. It is a methodology that takes a commitment to focusing on continually improving the process, and its operator, over the long term.

Why is Operational Excellence important to you?

One word: profitability. All business is centered around profitability; it is the revenue produced by the process that pays for your salary.

Tools for Operational Excellence

I feel that there are four ways that SimSci process simulation software from Schneider Electric can assist you in achieving operational excellence:

• Continuous Improvement
• Actionable Intelligence
• Workforce Optimization
• Managing & Lowering Risk.

Don’t just take it from me – we surveyed our customers (using TechValidate) asking them several questions about Operational Excellence. For instance 89% of our customers feel that SimSci software helps them achieve operational excellence (TechFact). Additionally, our customers provided details on how SimSci software helped them achieve Operational Excellence. You can see in the results below that SimSci helps customers in many ways.

You can see all the Operational Excellence results, by Industry, here.

In the coming months I am going to publish blog posts on all four of these topics, so stay tuned. But in the meantime, please use the comment section to tell me what “Operational Excellence” means to you?