The Way to Excellence Isn’t Easy – Just Vital

By Dhirendra Kumar

RLCB, formerly known as Raleigh Lions Clinic for the Blind, is one of the many clients IES has had the opportunity to partner with for Enterprise Excellence. The manufacturing and distribution center wanted to improve the management of their material processes, thru-put and cash flow within their facility. They wanted to improve their inventory turns and base their production on customer demand, while building upon the strengths of their workforce.

They wanted to diversify their business. They wanted transformation.

They turned to IES for help in strategic planning, including a method for growth, and met with great results.

Enterprise Excellence has helped RLCB increase volume by 30 percent by creating a process flow and layout that was conducive to more efficient production.

Engineering students from NC State University support the Enterprise Excellence programs, and a couple worked at RLCB. This approach creates a win-win situation for both the businesses and the students. Businesses get the opportunity to grow in revenue and profitability while implementing an Enterprise Excellence program. Students get an opportunity to practice what they’ve learned in their classes in real-world applications.

Eric Warnhoff, vice president of operations at RLCB, sees positive progression in every day that passes. “Dr. Kumar is a resource to our organization and he is instrumental in helping us become the world-class operation we aim to be,” he said.

RLCB, Inc. currently employs more than 280 people. They have many partnerships, with one of their most valuable being with the North Carolina Services for the Blind. RLCB, Inc. is awarded federal government contracts through National Industries for the Blind (NIB) in conjunction with the AbilityOne program, but they also have many private industry customers. A state of the art research and development department allows them to meet the needs of both the federal and commercial customer.

What is Enterprise Excellence?

Each organization is focused on producing products or services using a variety of processes to meet customer demand, while simultaneously increasing profitability or margin. These processes occur in functional areas such as sales and marketing, finance, operations and services.

Every business leader in enterprises both large and small strategizes in the hope of meeting customer demand while retaining and attracting new customers. The expected result: an increase in revenue and profitability, and ultimately, growth.

So, the key question - “Is it happening in every enterprise?” I am sure the answer is no. So, we need to understand why it is not happening.

First, we need to explain Enterprise Excellence. The Enterprise Excellence (EE) philosophy is a holistic model for leading an enterprise to total excellence by focusing on the needs of the customer. The model stresses organizational excellence, product and operational excellence, service excellence, and people excellence. See Figure 1.

To achieve Enterprise Excellence in a global economy, all aspects must work collaboratively. A visionary plan should incorporate people, product, processes, resources and technology. Customers are very demanding – expecting on-time delivery of quality products and services at low prices.

Enterprise Excellence is achieved by developing and executing a sustainable growth strategy to:

Unfortunately, the current world economy is in recession and this level of recession has not been seen since the 1930s. It will take some time to come out of it, but we will come out of it even stronger than before the recession. In the meantime, business leaders have to think about sustainability first and growth, second.

In a simple word sustainability means “more with less,” and this is a challenge not only for business leaders, but also for everybody in the world. Every day each of us should challenge ourselves to be better. At times that may include redefining what is possible and do more with less through increased efficiency and effectiveness. To accomplish this, we must rely on the fundamentals that have consistently delivered results, such as, productivity improvement, cost reduction, creativity, innovation, and maintaining a global presence for market leadership.

Business leaders and associates have to partner in order to focus on the needs of the customer and optimize the existing activities in the process. These processes include safety, quality, productivity, resource development, cost, etc. Businesses must find a balance between passion, people, and patience by studying the facts so as to fully grasp the situation. It is very important for businesses to understand their place as either within a state of sustainability or growth. It requires mutual trust and respect between business leaders, their associates, and most importantly, their customers. Understanding the status of an enterprise is key for success.

Enterprise Growth

Eventually, businesses will come out from sustainability mode and grow, but growth needs planning. So, what constitutes Enterprise growth?

Enterprise growth is an integrated approach affecting every employee and every functional area and strategy within the organization. It relies on transformational change management. It is very different from implementing the firm’s business strategies or executing process changes in isolation.

Enterprise growth calls for more than superficial change. These changes can be in response to marketplace events or to address underperformance, but enterprise growth is quite different from a company’s turnaround in financial difficulties. It will inevitably be the biggest single internal program that any enterprise undertakes. It is expected to disrupt the existing business model.

IES resolves the challenges experienced by organizations through partnerships. IES develops and implements business processes with the client to deliver a set of defined outcomes that represent substantial gains. The client has immediate access to IES expertise, resources and technology. IES offers continuous improvement and innovation to its clients’ business processes. This initiates growth and the ability to sustain gains over time while facing competition.

If you have questions regarding the Enterprise Excellence program, contact Dr. Dhirendra Kumar at Dhirendra_Kumar@ncsu.edu or call 919-515-8489.

Dr. Dhirenda Kumar has more than 35 years of technical, management, teaching, and research experience with major U.S. corporations and universities. He is the author of the book Six Sigma Best Practices: A Guide to Business Process Excellence for Diverse Industries and the manual "Lean Enterprise Solution in Global Competition." His extensive experience includes managerial positions with John Deere, Pratt and Whitney, and Pitney Bowes, Inc.