In sailing, manoeuvres succeed safely only through the interplay of the crew, taking the yacht, the weather and other external influences into account. It is much the same in manufacturing companies. Business success through high delivery performance is no accident: it takes planning and stable quality and production processes. And as on a sailing yacht, everything depends on how the parts work together.
Planning performance, quality performance and technical performance are the crew that brings your delivery performance – and with it your business success – safely into harbour.
In today’s fast-moving, globalised economy, companies have to orchestrate their processes precisely to stay ahead. That certainly includes:
Planning performance
Every sailor checks current conditions and forecasts and uses up-to-date charts, because it can be a matter of survival. In a company, stable planning processes reflect technical and quality performance completely and as precisely as possible. Every step of the real operation is represented; there are no blank spots on the planning map. The underlying figures are current and have to be maintained.
Quality performance
You expect precise seamanship from a skipper if a trip is to go perfectly. Quality, then, is not only a promise but the basis for smooth operations. In a company, high quality prevents delays from rework or quantity deviations. In the end, every quality problem becomes a logistics problem too.
Technical performance
Nobody wants to set out on a long voyage in a leaky old tub. Technical performance is what keeps everything running smoothly: modern machines, well-designed IT systems and considered automation are the keys to the efficiency and stability behind capacity and output.
When planning, quality and technical performance are optimised and work together, the basis for consistently high delivery performance is in place. Technical strength secures smooth operations, quality performance guarantees reliability, plan and reality match – and delivery happens on time.
The basis is a set of key figures tailored to your company that shows each performance dimension both currently and as a trend over time. They should generate themselves automatically and point as directly as possible to root causes – at best they even indicate the size of the step to take. Key figures can be specific to a product, a defect type, an industry, a machine or a plant. Whatever produces insight for improving performance is the right one.
This whole-system view is the key to delighted customers and lasting success. And the best part: companies that master these synergies stand out clearly from the competition – like the winners of the Ocean Race from the rest of the fleet.
