We help our clients achieve world-class operations. Blending strategic thinking with hands-on practicality, we develop and implement operational strategies that solve our clients' most critical problems. Our work with clients encompasses the following areas:
Optimizing manufacturing systems. Our approach to operations performance transformation addresses three main areas: the operating system, the management infrastructure, and employees’ mind-sets, capabilities, and behaviors. We combine our knowledge of the world’s best operating systems with internationally recognized improvement programs such as lean, Six Sigma, and the theory of constraints. Our ability to serve clients is strengthened by six Production Systems Design Centers (PSDCs) across Europe, the Americas, and Asia, which are dedicated to the creation of leading-edge knowledge. We develop programs for capability building including “boot camps,” lean academies, proprietary tools, and model factories. These factories enable clients to gain hands-on experience in topics such as lean capability building, change-agent leadership, and integrated performance transformation.
Increasing capital productivity. We enable our clients to grow profitably by helping them maximize the value of their capital investments. We work closely with owners or developers as well as with contractors, to achieve higher lifecycle returns on their large capital projects in less time and with greater predictability.
Improving service operations and business support functions. We analyze operations in distributed networks, outlets, back offices, and other functions to determine the delivery options that best support the business strategy. We help clients tailor these services to meet and exceed customers’ expectations while achieving cost and profitability goals. We go beyond physical system design to address the management infrastructure and employees’ mind-sets and behaviors, enabling our clients to lead change independently.
Enhancing purchasing and supply management. We help organizations build competitive advantage through the development of sustainable, world-class capabilities in purchasing and supply management. Purchasing is often the most significant source of immediate and long-term value creation available to a corporation, and interventions are comparatively easy to institute.
Improving supply chain management. Effective supply chain management supports corporate-strategy objectives such as globalization and growth, and it contributes to the success of merger and acquisition actions, as well as financial turnarounds. The implementation of solutions can be the most challenging step when improving the supply chain, particularly when the people and processes affected span several functions, organizations, and countries.
Optimizing product development. We support our clients' profitable growth by improving the development process for new products. We bring expert knowledge in product and operational improvement by applying best practices gleaned from several industries, creating customized practices for our clients. We also help our clients fundamentally transform their R&D and product-development systems and organizations to improve and sustain performance.
For more about McKinsey’s experience in operations, visit our global practice homepage.