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Too Busy Optimising to Optimise?

12 June, 2010 by James Lawther Leave a Comment

Consultants are making fortunes selling the next wave of improvement techniques: operations analysis, process re-engineering, lean, 6 sigma, whatever the next one is. Despite all the training few organisations really succeed.

Why should we bother with process improvement if it doesn’t work?  We are all clever driven people.  We are all busy improving our parts of the business every day.

And that is exactly the reason to look at your processes.  We are all busy optimising our own little bit, the bit we get rewarded for and that wreaks havoc on everything else.

But that is also why it is so hard to pull off.  We are all busy optimising our own little bit, the bit we get rewarded for and we don’t want anybody messing with it.

Photo by Patrick Hendry on Unsplash

Filed Under: Blog, Operations Analysis Tagged With: assumptions, lean six sigma, silo management

About the Author

James Lawther
James Lawther

James Lawther is a middle-aged, middle manager.

To reach this highly elevated position he has worked in numerous industries, from supermarket retailing to tax collecting.  He has had several operational roles, including running the night shift in a frozen pea packing factory and carrying out operational research for a credit card company.

As you can see from his C.V. he has either a wealth of experience or is incapable of holding down a job.  If the latter is true this post isn’t worth a minute of your attention.

Unfortunately, the only way to find out is to read it and decide for yourself.

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