Xerox Operational Excellence Program

My guest on the Business901 Podcast was Tricia Bhattacharya. She authored the Guide to Operational Excellence that Xerox makes available to their print customers. It introduces a five-step plan to help in-plants remove waste like overproduction and idle time. The five steps are: understand the goal, measure the current state, analyze data, develop a plan, and implement and track results.

Tricia explains the guide by saying, “I thought with Xerox and all of our focus on Lean Six Sigma, why don’t we develop something that print shops can use to help themselves run a little more efficiently. As a Black Belt, I thought some of these concepts are not really too difficult, Lean Six Sigma has almost a stigma attached to it that it’s very difficult and very hard to apply to a smaller business or a medium sized business. I took some of the simpler concepts out of a Lean Six Sigma tool set, put them in this guide, and renamed it “Operational Excellence.”

She is currently a Worldwide Segment Marketing Manager for the Xerox Graphic Communications Business Group. In this role, she is responsible for developing marketing programs focused on in-plant environments. She also holds a Lean Six Sigma Black Belt. Her 19-year career at Xerox has spanned roles from product development to marketing and she holds several patents for technologies developed while working on high-speed color product innovations. She earned a BS in Mechanical Engineering from Lafayette College, an ME in Mechanical Engineering from RIT, and an MBA from the Simon School at the University of Rochester.