Let’s Talk

Insights

How to build high-performance operations

How education, flow design and implementation create capability that stays in the operation.

Originally published 2025-06-01

The short answer

High-performance operations need a defined future-state flow and people who understand how to run it. Duggan combines design, practical education and implementation support so the operating capability can remain with the business.

Start with a defined operating destination

High-performance operations need a clear picture of how work should reach the customer. For Duggan, the destination is Operational Excellence: employees can see the flow of value and respond when it is disrupted.

This makes the goal practical. People need to understand what should happen next, whether work is on time and what to do when the expected condition changes. That is the foundation for dependable execution and less repeated management intervention.

Design the connections

Product families, demand, work content and shared-resource capability shape the future-state design. The work connects processes across a customer delivery path, including information and supporting functions where they determine readiness or timing.

The same principles can apply in manufacturing and office operations, but the detailed design must reflect the actual work. A high-mix fabrication environment, an aircraft check and an engineering approval process do not need identical solutions.

Teach people how to use the design

Duggan combines formal education with practical application. Leaders learn how to guide the change; employees learn how the operating connections work and how to recognize normal and abnormal flow.

Learning is tied to the operation being designed. The aim is that people understand why a signal, sequence or response exists, so capability remains with the business after external support reduces.

Turn the design into daily practice

A useful engagement produces a future-state design and a practical implementation plan. Responsibilities, priorities and measures should be clear. Support can range from periodic coaching to more intensive on-site implementation, depending on the scope.

  • Start with the operating challenge and agreed customer requirement.
  • Define the future-state flow and the responses needed to run it.
  • Connect education with implementation responsibilities.
  • Review whether the design is being used and whether the agreed performance measures are changing.
Operating requirements connect flow design, practical education and application to visible daily operation.
Connect design, education and implementation so teams can use the system in daily work.

Connect operating capability with growth

More dependable execution can create time for customer development, new products and other growth activities. Duggan calls this working on Offense. Releasing time is only part of the opportunity: leadership also needs a deliberate plan for how to use it.

The outcome should be judged against the engagement’s baseline and scope. A specific value stream may need shorter lead time; another operation may first need clearer readiness and fewer recurring disruptions.

Apply this to your operation

Begin with the customer requirement, the value stream and the people who will own the work. Ask what design, implementation plan and learning are needed to make the change sustainable.

Explore the relevant Duggan service →

Put the ideas into practice

Explore the service

Discuss the operating context, scope and practical support that fit your needs.

Explore the service →

See more insights

Explore related operating challenges and the approach behind the work.

Browse insights →

Let’s discuss your operating challenge

Tell us where delivery is under pressure, what is changing and the outcome you are seeking. Use the client enquiry form below to start the conversation.

Call Duggan

Operational Excellence is a desirable state to reach for any company, and it’s not out of reach for any company, even those manufacturing large, expensive, time-consuming products with a complicated mix.

But what does it take to achieve Operational Excellence? Chances are you have tried a few different ways before, but things always seem to revert to their original state. 

Management consultancies tend to share information about your organization that you already seem to know, and don’t offer very specific help to implement their grand ideas. 

Lean consultants may help to improve an isolated part of a process but when your outcomes don’t improve, what’s the point? Being “leaner” doesn’t matter if it’s not improving your performance in the eyes of the customer. 

You need a way to design a system that allows your team to consistently deliver as promised to customers, without the need for management intervention. A system that sustains long after the ‘consultants’ have gone. You need a reliable and autonomous Customer Delivery System based on the principles of Operational Excellence.

The Right OpEx Deployment Feels Like Learning – Not Consulting

Instead of the endless journey of Continuous Improvement popular among many consulting firms, we’ll teach you how to define the destination for your efforts, and the design and implementation process to get there. 

You’ll understand where your improvement efforts will take you, how the operation will behave each day, and what each employee’s role will be. 

Then we’ll formally teach you the step-by-step process for designing seamless flow in the office or in the factory, from the supply chain to shipping and receiving, that gets you to your destination and results in a high-performance operation.  

We firmly believe that transformation depends upon formal education, so we provide training on how the concepts of flow apply in your specific environment. 

Whether you’re in the complex world of aerospace, shipbuilding, oil and gas, construction, consumer products, industrial products, pharmaceuticals or run business processes without any manufacturing, we customize our training to your products and processes. 

To achieve Operational Excellence, your team needs training that:

  • provides a destination for your efforts and a road map to get there without costly assessments and presentations
  • is based on a process and formal advanced education, and not on consultant recommendations and endless continuous improvement efforts through and Kaizen and facilitation
  • teaches design principles that can be clearly understood, applied and then applied again. The trainer should not be there to bank on the client’s ability to brainstorm. 
  • focuses on business growth and market share by implementing seamless delivery to the customer through the 8 Principles of Operational Excellence

Teaching
Consulting

At Duggan Associates, we’ve upended consulting. Our consultants work with clients to achieve a defined end state in practical terms that each associate (both in the office and in manufacturing) can understand and achieve in their environment. Unlike the typical approach, we don’t look to continuously improve your operation by eliminating waste and running brainstorming or Kaizen events.

Instead, we teach you an end-to-end design for material, people, and information flow using principles and guidelines that will achieve Operational Excellence – where “Each and every employee can see the flow of value to the customer and fix that flow before it breaks down.” 

The result of our consulting process? A high-performance operation that seamlessly delivers products to customers day in and day out without the need for management intervention.

This type of transformation is not dependent on good management or leadership heroics. It’s based on having a robust end-to-end process that delivers products each day seamlessly, even in the most complex environments. (Note: none of this requires any new software, nor do we sell software). 

We will teach you how to design, implement, and engage all employees to create a Customer Delivery System that will serve as the foundation for you to become a solution provider, a preferred supplier, and an innovator with your customers so you can grab market share and enable business growth.

The Result: Your Business is Designed for Operational Excellence

The result of our consulting process? A high-performance operation that seamlessly delivers products to customers day in and day out without the need for constant reactive responses from management.  Management can then devote more time to strategy and revenue generating activities!

Let's talk about
your challenge.