Operational Excellence

Questions: 1. Analyse how operational excellence may enable sustainable development. 2. Explain what methods you could employ to achieve this operational excellence within your selected organisation. 3. Evaluate which methods would most decrease your selected organisations environmental footprint. Answers: 1. Operational Excellence Operational activities of an organization are considered as the primary marketing tools which are responsible for moderations of factors such as maintainability, flexibility, responsiveness, innovation and quality. The facet of operational excellence has emerged as a profound contributor in the field of business organizations. It has shifted the focus of organizations from the traditional decisions pertaining to location of production units, predicted productivity levels and the type of the equipment used towards the efficiency of the decisions and the competitiveness of the operations of an enterprise as compared to peers (Slack, 2015). Operational excellence focuses on essential principles considered with design of value streams and workflow for employees and the hierarchical arrangements must be clearly predicted in the plan. The aspect of operational excellence also contributes to the creation of standard workflow and allows prospects for offense activities which can provide oppo rtunities for product development and improvement in technology which are essential requirements for sustainability. Sustainable advantage could only be guaranteed if the production and operational capacities of an enterprise are able to cater the needs of capital effectiveness, asset productivity and operational risk management (Peng Lai, 2012). An organization can easily derive benefits such as minimal probabilities for accidents or injuries, improved efficiency, abilities to obtain potential sustainable profits from the operational assets and positioning the enterprise in the market with significant competitive advantage. 2. Methods to Achieve Operational Excellence The selected organization for addressing the concerns of operational excellence is DuPont which is a large chemical corporation based in the United States. The organization depicts a formidable market share and hence the primary emphasis of the company is vested in realizing wider scopes for sustainability. The suggested methods for improving the operational excellence of the company are operational risk management and investments in people. Generally organizations assume to achieve maximum revenues through investment of minimal amount of financial resources, time and effort (Krajewski, Ritzman Malhotra, 2013). However, operational excellence is often realized as an outcome of inhibitions on safety incidents, equipment malfunction, insufficient output and environmental emissions. In case of DuPont, the organization should apprehend the reality which is far from the above cited aspects of operational excellence. The organization should emphasize on determination of the gaps which cou ld be identified in the maintenance procedures and the insufficiency of designs through utilization of knowledge and experience of the employees (Chase, 2012). Operational excellence should be implemented at managerial levels and the involvement of managers must be directed towards identification of strategic and tactical anomalies such as poor contractor and supplier integration, inefficient cost management and lack of a functional operation model. 3. Methods Decrease Selected Organizations Environmental Footprint Environmental protection also deserves a profound mention in the list of requirements for operational excellence. The implications of environmental footprint of an organization are key drivers for sustainability of the same. In case of DuPont the operations of the company could be impactful on the environment and employees (Peng Lai, 2012). Safety incidents could be prevented through communication of appropriate safety management plans to the workforce of the organization. Furthermore, the organization could accomplish a positive environmental footprint through ensuring appropriate waste disposal measures and compliance with environmental standards. References Chase, J., 2012.Operations management. Tata McGraw-Hill. Krajewski, L.J., Ritzman, L.P. and Malhotra, M.K., 2013.Operations management: processes and supply chains. New York: Pearson. Peng, D.X. and Lai, F., 2012. Using partial least squares in operations management research: A practical guideline and summary of past research. Journal of Operations Management,30(6), pp.467-480. Slack, N., 2015.Operations strategy. John Wiley Sons, Ltd.