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Part Four
Improvement
Figure 20.2 In operations improvement should achieve ‘fit’ between market requirements and operations
performance
Line of fit
organization’s improvement efforts into a broader context, preferably one that brings
together an overall operation’s performance with its market objectives. After all, at a strategic
level, the whole purpose of operations improvement is to make operations performance
better serve its markets. Figure 20.2(a) illustrates this idea by showing diagrammatically the
approximate alignment or ‘fit’ between an operation’s performance and the requirements of
its markets.
The vertical dimension represents the level of market requirements either because they
reflect the intrinsic needs of customers or because their expectations have been shaped by
the firm’s marketing activity. This includes such factors as the strength of brand and reputation,
the degree of market differentiation and the extent of plausible market promises.
Moving along this dimension indicates a broadly enhanced level of market performance. The
horizontal scale represents the level of the organization’s operations performance. This
includes such things as its ability to achieve its competitive objectives and the efficiency with
which it uses its resources. Again, moving along the dimension indicates a broadly enhanced
level of operations performance and therefore operations capabilities. Be careful, however,
in using this diagrammatic representation. It is a conceptual model rather than a practical
tool. We have deliberately been vague in calibrating or even defining precisely the two axes
in the figure. The model is intended merely to illustrate some ideas around the concept of
strategic improvement.
In terms of the framework illustrated in Figure 20.2(a), improvement means three things.
1 Achieving ‘alignment’ – This means achieving an approximate balance between ‘required
market performance’ and ‘actual operations performance’. So when alignment is achieved
a firm’s customers do not need, or expect, levels of operations performance which it
is unable to supply. Nor does the firm have operations strengths which are either inappropriate
for market needs or remain unexploited in the market. The diagonal line in
Figure 20.2(a) therefore represents a ‘line of fit’ with market and operations in balance.
2 Achieving ‘sustainable’ alignment – It is not enough to achieve some degree of alignment
to a single point in time. It also has to be sustained over time. So, asking the question
‘how good are our operations at delivering the performance which our market requires?’
is necessary but not sufficient over the long term. Equally important questions are ‘how