Operational efficiency reviews: where to look first

Inefficiency rarely announces itself. It accumulates in handoffs, workarounds and exceptions that made sense once and were never revisited. A good review finds the few changes that matter most and ignores the rest.

Follow the work, not the org chart

Pick one core process — quote to cash, order to delivery, hire to productive — and trace a real example from start to finish. Note every handoff, wait and rework loop. The org chart shows who reports to whom; the process trace shows where time actually goes.

Five places inefficiency usually hides

• Handoffs — each one adds waiting time and a chance for information to be lost.
• Re-keying — the same data typed into more than one system.
• Approvals — sign-offs that exist out of habit rather than risk.
• Exceptions — special cases handled manually that have quietly become the norm.
• Reporting — reports produced on schedule that nobody uses to make a decision.

Measure before changing

Capture a simple baseline: cycle time, error or rework rate, and cost per unit of output. Without a baseline, it is impossible to tell whether a change helped.

Prioritise by impact and effort

Plot each opportunity on impact against effort. Start with high-impact, low-effort changes to build momentum and credibility, then sequence the larger projects.

Assign owners and dates

A review that ends in a report has not finished. Each recommended change needs a named owner, a date and a measure of success, reviewed until it sticks.