St. Nicholas is back in the country! From his arrival on Nov. 16, he has as much as 2.5 weeks to prepare for the delightful evening. Then he will hand out millions of packages to children across the country. This immense job requires tight planning, preparation and execution. Here you can speak of Operational Excellence!
Looking at the images of the Sinterklaas news, Sinterklaas does not give his organization an excellent impression. Quite a few things go wrong, but it all works out in the end, and every year! That cannot be a coincidence, surely there must be a rock-solid organization to deal with all these setbacks.
What are St. Nicholas’ best practices?
- Within his organization, St. Nicholas has defined clear roles. There is Head Pete, the rock where all escalations end up, Pakjespiet who brings all the gifts to the children, and Zeurpiet who, by the way, is present in many organizations. The Pieten are working tightly together to achieve the common goal of delighting all the children of the Netherlands with a gift on December 5. A good example of alignment.
- In case of setbacks or outside disruptions, the flexibility and strength of this group of Pieten is apparent. Training and motivational leadership provide this.
- Customer wishes were clearly identified by collecting children’s wish lists in the run-up to December 5.
- The next step is a streamlined S&OP process, every day the packing plan is updated based on current input so the organization knows where it stands. This plan is unambiguously recorded in St. Nicholas’ big book, the single source of truth.
- The packing department completes production orders in a standard way: recognizable packing paper and the customer name clearly written on it so the delivery department knows where the package should go.
- Built into this standard process is the ability to be flexible with specific features. For example, a customer-specific poem can be added, also the gifts can be wrapped in a special way. Continuous improvement teams find solutions for all other deviations from the standard.
In these best practices, I recognize the principles from the lean philosophy. At Gwynt, we use these principles (see diagram below) to establish the foundation for a Culture of Excellence with our clients. In order to achieve excellence in operations with a culture of continuous improvement. Do you also want to achieve Operational Excellence in your organization? If so, please contact us.