THOUGHT LEADER: Ezra Eckhardt, Wave Form Systems, Inc.

Ezra is just one of the many esteemed Operational Excellence thought leaders giving his perspective at our event partner, The Business Transformation & Operational Excellence World Summit (BTOES17). Giving his talk, 'Transforming & Improving Sales with Operational Excellence & Strategic Planning' in the dedicated Business Transformation Summit, we asked him to give us his thoughts on what he hopes to achieve at the Summit...

Tell us about your roles & responsibilities within your organization.

As the Chief Operating Officer, I am responsible for M/A oversight, strategic and operational planning, HR administration, coordinating the annual

What are the critical challenges your presentation will address?

How to use basic planning tools (Hoshin Kanri, sales process planning, operational and performance metrics, communication, contract management). We are transforming a successful business into a transformational engine within the space.

After your presentation, what are you hoping the attendees will take away with them?

Separating the difference between complicated and complex things. Many of our businesses are built around complex concepts, but people like to make things complicated. By using proven project management processes you can impact small daily changes to support the large framebreaking change that will move a company toward its long-term objectives.

What have been the biggest developments in Operational Excellence in the last 12 months, within your organization?

Application of goal deployment, clear and consistent communication of the company vision and breakthrough objectives, alignment of operational and financial metrics, use of basic project planning skills to manage change projects.

How do you see Operational Excellence developing over the next 5-10 years within your organization?

Formal creation of business workflows, use of visual controls, creating an operating model that is scale-able to business partners, alignment of short-term goals and breakthroughs to the longer-term vision of the organization, creating an employee development model that rewards consistent behaviors, unity of effort on a common objective to transform an organization.

What 3 key learnings would you like to takeaway from this conference?

1) What innovative or proven concepts are people successfully applying across other sectors?

2) How can we accelerate transformation without destabilizing the organization through excess friction?

3) Are there any changes that we can model within our business that will help the medical space evolve more quickly?

Ted has been with The Coca-Cola Company leading implementations of OE in Shared Services, Information Technology, Human Resources, Supply Chain and Franchise Bottling partners for 10 years. Prior to The Coca-Cola Company, Ted worked in the Automotive Industry with Ford Motor Company and Tier I suppliers in product development. In total Ted has been working as a continuous improvement professional for over 20 years. You can learn more about Ted's involvement at the Business Transformation & Operational Excellence World Summit here.