MARKHAM
CapabilitiesCapability 06

Operational excellence

Cost, quality and throughput improvement measured at the line item, not the initiative deck — constraint by constraint, verified against a frozen baseline, and frequently without capital.

Practice reference MKM-C-06Established 2022Led at partner levelGoverned by MKM-F-003
01 — Problems we solve

When the operation underperforms and the capex case writes itself too easily.

a

Margin has thinned for consecutive quarters and the explanations keep changing.

b

Throughput is constrained and the default answer is capital — before anyone has mapped where the constraint actually sits.

c

A cost programme delivered its target on paper while the run-rate quietly recovered within a year.

d

Quality escapes and rework are priced nowhere, so they are managed nowhere.

02 — Deliverables
Constraint map

Where throughput, cost and quality are actually lost — located at the line item, priced at the line item.

Improvement portfolio

Interventions sequenced by return on management attention; capital last, not first.

Operating cadence

A weekly rhythm that reviews the run-rate against the frozen baseline, so recovered cost stays recovered.

Verified run-rate ledger

Every claimed saving tested at month 12 under the Verification Standard. Decayed results return as open work.

03 — Process
Wk 1–4
Map

The operation measured where the work happens: constraints, loss points and their prices, from primary data.

Wk 5–6
Sequence

Interventions ordered by value against load; the baseline frozen and put under change control.

Wk 7+
Execute

Constraint-by-constraint delivery under a weekly cadence, with the line reviewing its own numbers.

Mo 12
Verify

Run-rate re-tested against the frozen baseline. What did not survive the year is reopened.

04 — Evidence & standards

The practice is governed, not improvised.

Standards appliedEvery saving is verified under MKM-F-003 against a frozen month-0 baseline — the same standard our research applies to itself.
Outcome evidence+19% throughput at month 9 in a two-plant industrial group, delivered without capital expenditure and verified against the frozen baseline.
ReferencesNamed client references for this practice are available on request, subject to clearance.
DocumentationConstraint-mapping instruments and cadence formats are published in the framework library; nothing proprietary is required to audit our logic.