Operations Efficiency

Have you ever heard "This is the way we have always done it" ?

I am a strong believer that this type of language is dangerous for any organization and a potential indication of a lack of encouragement from senior staff which could be resulting in, inadvertently suppressing process improvement. Ultimately, and in my guess unintentionally, this results in zero improvement, leaving the company dead in the water whilst competitors progress and constantly improve.

In saying this how do we improve operational efficiency? Well I am sure there is many different approaches however below is how I have approached improving efficiency.

I am not an Oxford scholar on this topic but it is certainly one of my passions. Why do something that you are passionate about if you are just going to do it the same as everyone else. Do it better, do it operationally more efficient, potentially saving money, time, effort, resources etc … The below is how I break down efficiency and improvement methods, and attempt to employ both hats in planning and during most operations myself.  

I break this down into 2 different types of efficiency that I will discuss here, and both require a different process to potentially improve efficiency.

1. Operational Efficiency: This is the generic understanding of efficiency, where any flat time is minimized through effective planning and communication.

• Pending the operation type, operational efficiency requires at minimum, a detailed orientated planner with an analytical mindset. Having the ability and the knowledge to collect data, break down repetitive operations and information, to continuously improve specific processes. It requires knowledge to prepare for following operations in the program or procedure. In addition to this operational efficiency requires buy in from the team, as all personnel have a part to play in achieving peak performance.

1. Creative Efficiency: Has the ability to significantly alter the way the business completes the process. The key difference here is that creative efficiency redefines or alters the current processes to reduce the overall delivery time rather than improving flat time and current operational time that occurs in existing processes as per the definition of operations efficiency above.

• Due to human nature, despite the benefits often being significant, this is often proves more difficult to adopt. Whether it is fear of failure or the fact that people like habits and like to do what they have always done, and as such, it is the easiest process improvement technique to dismiss.

Embracing change is an attitude that is driven from the top down and is key to continuous improvement and certainly an important part of improving operational efficiency. How are you supposed to improve anything let alone efficiency without making changes?

The most creative companies of 2020 are some of the more successful and those that you would associate with embracing change, innovation, new technology, and consistent improvement. These include companies like Apply, Amazon, Uber and Alibaba. All extremely successful companies, that pride themselves on constantly improving and pushing boundaries.

In short, improving efficiency requires company support and the ability for the team to embrace change. Personally I break the efficiency improvement down into the different methodologies along the lines of the below.

• Operational: First I break down the current processes, and develop a detailed and achievable plan, and communicate this as effectively as possible with the team in an attempt to eliminating flat operational time.
• Creative: Secondly I question if this is the best way to complete the process. I remove individual steps (elimination) of the process (typically key steps/norms that you would think the deliverable cannot be completed without) and determine if the end deliverable can be achieved without it, or is it possible to add less intensive processes/steps/deliverable to maintain the required product/service or process. This can force you to think outside of the box, and ultimately "change the way it has always been done".
• Buy In: You must have buy in from all the other team members. You can have the best ideas, process improvements etc … to save hours, days or months off operations, projects and programs however if the team doesn’t buy into your ideas, ultimately things will go back to the "way they were always done".

Be efficient, and do it with passion.

John Tranfield