Why Operational Excellence Gets a Bad Rep | Roche’s Operational Excellence

Roche Operational Excellence

One of our clients brought this article to my attention about Roche.

“Roche announces implementation plans for its Operational Excellence Program”

If you read the article, and understand what operational excellence really is, you’ll see that Roche doesn’t know.

Check out the 5 bullets the article starts.  Generally speaking they are:

1. Cost Structures

2. Sustained Investment

3. Cost savings

4. Reducing work force

5. Restructuring cost savings

If your company was announcing the implementation of an Operational Excellence Program – would you use the 5 main points the Roche uses?

Through this article Roche is telling me it’s all about cost and reducing it.  What about safety? What about quality?

What Roche Should Have mentioned if implementing true Operational Excellence?

Improving quality (the article doesn’t mention quality ONCE)

Social pact (versus Roche who is cutting 5,000 Jobs / 3,550 American jobs)

So, what do you think?  Is Roch really implementing Operational Excellence?  Or is this misusing the term Operational Excellence?