I was presented recently with a typical challenge related to change management: how would you structure a large-scale OD project, a multi-year innovation journey? It was part of a case-study exercise in a consultant selection process. You can be an internal OD/HR leader or an external consultant; you may face the same challenge: how to put such a multi-layered, dynamic process into one high-level overview slide?

With the days of China being a low-cost country long over, its manufacturing is at risk of being squeezed between innovation leaders on the one side and low-cost competitors on the other. There is much discussion about automation and digitalisation of production but this requires a foundation in terms of operational excellence, which in most industries is simply not there yet. This article introduces a back-to-basics approach and the lean enterprise as a solution, because a vast potential is still untapped by many manufacturing companies.