Most organisations talk about Operational Excellence like it’s a set of tools.
But the companies that Profound Consulting has transformed treat operational excellence as a daily, practical discipline focused on one thing:
Removing the obstacles that slow down sales, throughput, decisions, delivery, profit and cash flow.
As consultants, the first thing we do is diagnose your business flow. Because the real problems—and the real solutions—are almost always found there, not in conference rooms.
Operational excellence consulting is one of the verticals of Profound Consulting and here’s a practical look at what Profound Consulting does inside companies under Operational excellence consulting.
1. Find the Real Constraint—Not the “Popular Problem”
Every organisation has a long list of perceived issues.
But in reality, one constraint controls 70–90% of total organisational performance.
In real projects, we’ve found constraints like:
- Organisational Policy hampering the quality and speed of decision making
- One inspection step holding up the entire plant
- A set of coders slowing the entire software delivery
- A welding bay causing week-long queues
- Delaying project delivery and the yield by inflating number of hours to complement billing value
- A senior reviewer slowing down service delivery
- Engineering department disrupting flow downstream in an ETO environment
- Slow purchase approvals delaying production
- A vendor that causes daily stockouts
Leaders rarely mismanage operations; they misidentify the real constraint.
2. Increase Output Without Spending Money (This Works Fast)
Before approving new machines, establishing more plants or hiring more people, we focus on exploiting the existing constraint. This is where our operational consulting expertise comes into play.
Practical examples:
- Deep study and analysis on what’s the One thing limiting the growth of the company
- Reducing changeover time
- Abolishing the company policy which hampers quality and speed of decision making
- Staging materials right at point-of-use
- Fixing micro stoppages (often 2–4 minutes that add up to hours)
- Standardising work around the bottleneck
- Ensuring best resources manage the constraint
- Removing every non-essential task around it
In many plants, Profound Consulting has achieved a jump in throughput to the tune of 30–40% within weeks—without capital investment.
3. Align Everything to Support the Constraint
This is where companies see the biggest performance leap.
Examples from Profound Consulting’s engagements:
- Sales stops overloading operations with low-margin, non-priority orders
- Planning builds the production and supply chain schedule around the constraint, not Excel “load distribution”
- Project company prioritizing the project work to the real constraint & avoiding bad multitasking of critical resources
- Quality and maintenance commit to “first response” for the bottleneck area
- Non-constraint resources prepare work, tools, and materials to keep constraint running
- Suppliers trained to plan & execute aligning to their customer’s needs
When the entire organisation works at the pace of the constraint, output skyrockets.
4. Elevate the Constraint—Only When It Makes Financial Sense
Once the internal improvements are exhausted, we look at smart ways to expand capacity.
Examples:
- Look at acquiring strategic suppliers
- Cross-training to reduce dependency
- Adding part-time or staggered-shift manpower
- Creating parallel processing lines
- Bringing in simple jigs/fixtures to reduce cycle time
- Small automation (not a full robot)
- Digital alerts to eliminate waiting time
5. Make Execution Predictable With Daily Management
This is what sustains operational excellence—not a big initiative, but small routines done daily.
Teams implement:
- 15-minute daily huddles
- Visual boards to track output, issues, and priorities
- RCA and 5-Why for recurring problems
- Standard operating procedures
- Weekly cross-functional syncs
- Simple scorecards that everyone understands
When these routines become habit, performance becomes predictable.
Real Examples (Practical, Proven, Measurable)
🏭 Manufacturing: 38% Higher Output in 6 Weeks
- Constraint: Packaging line
- Actions: Changeover reduction, material staging, work balancing
- Result: Output per shift increased from 8250 → 11385 units
🚚 Supply Chain: 72% Faster Order Fulfilment
- Constraint: Scheduling of suppliers
- Actions: Replenishment model with Auto trigger to the suppliers informing What to produce, How much to produce, When to deliver
- Result: Lead time reduced from 11 → 3 days
💼 Services: 50% Faster TAT
- Constraint: Senior reviewer bottleneck
- Actions: Templates, delegation, parallel workflows
- Result: TAT dropped from 10 → 5 days
These improvements didn’t require massive investment—just clarity, discipline, and focused execution.
Why Companies Engage Operational Excellence Consultants
Not as good to have
But for results like these:
- Higher throughput
- Lower operating cost
- Shorter lead times
- Higher first-pass quality
- Better cash flow
- More predictable operations
Consultants like Profound Consulting bring speed, structure, and focus, helping teams execute smarter—not harder.
The Real Lesson: Operational Excellence Is Built on Practical Actions.
Operational Excellence isn’t a toolkit.
It’s a way of running the business where:
🔹 The constraint is always clear
🔹 Everyone works to protect flow
🔹 Daily management keeps execution tight
🔹 Improvement becomes a habit
🔹 Results arrive fast and sustain longer
The organizations that adopt this approach don’t just “improve operations.”
They build a competitive advantage that compounds year after year.
Want to see these results in your business? Connect with Profound Consulting and turn operational excellence into your competitive edge.
FAQ: Operational Excellence Consulting
1. What is operational excellence consulting?
Operational excellence consulting helps organisations identify the real constraint in their process and improve flow, throughput, and decision speed. It focuses on practical actions—not tools—to deliver faster output, lower costs, and predictable performance.
2. What do operational excellence consulting firms like Profound Consulting do?
Operational excellence consulting firms analyse your business flow, find the primary bottleneck, and implement quick, practical improvements such as reducing changeover time, fixing micro stoppages, and aligning sales, planning, quality, and suppliers to the constraint.
3. Why should companies hire an operational excellence consulting firm?
Companies hire operational excellence consulting firms to get expert diagnosis, faster execution, and unbiased identification of the real constraint. This leads to higher throughput, reduced lead times, improved cash flow, and sustained operational performance.
4. How fast can operational excellence consulting deliver results?
Most organisations see measurable improvements within 2–6 weeks, as operational excellence consulting quickly increases throughput and removes flow obstacles without major investment.
