In August 1945, Mr. Kiichiro Toyota, then president of Toyota Motor Company,
said "Catch up with America in three years, otherwise the automobile industry in
Japan will not survive."
Over the next 60 years Toyota and other manufacturers developed tools,
techniques and methodologies around process management that have allowed
them use their processes as strategic weapons to capture market share
seemingly at will.
We saw the results of this approach, developed by Taiichi Ohno, Shigeo Shingo,
Hiroyuki Hirano and others, through out the 1980's and 90's as industrial giants
and market leaders were humbled and in some cases eliminated.
Our History
In 1999, a small consulting firm was created to bring this knowledge to a wider
audience; first in manufacturing and then in healthcare. This firm, OpEx, is the
culmination of the best of these efforts into a rapid but systematic way to improve
business viability.
One foundational element of OpEx is "Lean Manufacturing" a term coined by Dr
James P. Womack and Daniel T Jones' book, The Machine That Changed the
World. Lean principles can have a profound impact on any product or service to
which they are applied. Reductions in lead-time of 50-80%, inventory reductions
of 50-70%, productivity improvements of 30-50% and comparative floor space
reductions are achievable. Lean is the essential method of removing "fat" or
waste from a process. Waste can be defined as anything that does not add value
to your customer - or anything the customer is unwilling to pay for. "Lean"
enables you to remove this waste thus do more with less so that you can reduce
costs and deliver great value to your customers.
A Lean system if implemented correctly will eliminate non-value adding activities,
improve workflow, standardize processes, create visual management controls,
reduce errors, increase quality, increase safety and create a culture of
continuous improvement.
Moving Forward
Realizing that technology could make lean consulting more affordable to an even
wider audience, OpEx Software LLC was formed in 2007. It's Catena® process
improvement system allows users of all sizes to take advantage of years of
implementation experience from one integrated package.
