Industrial excellence

The post-war boom years, dubbed the "Trente Glorieuses" by Jean Fourastié, led our manufacturers to develop, experiment with and validate a number of management rules perfectly suited to this context. These rules were subsequently incorporated into the ERP software packages that now equip the majority of our companies. Today, however, the situation has changed radically: demand is lower than supply, which has become globalized, products have extremely short life cycles, and customers are increasingly demanding in terms of price, customization and associated services. In such a context, these productivist rules no longer deliver the results we're used to, and manufacturers, somewhat disoriented, are turning to new approaches such as Lean Management, Six Sigma or even the Theory of Constraints.

This movement may seem promising. However, we are witnessing a large number of misunderstandings and blunders concerning the management of these approaches, the deployment of related tools, the definition of objectives and the measurement of performance achieved. The main cause of this situation can be attributed to the failure to question a certain number of existing presuppositions, particularly those relating to the quest for local performance, which is indispensable in the current context.

This behavior is undoubtedly the most persistent and damaging legacy of the "Thirty Glorious Years". We therefore urgently need to invent new models and managerial and administrative paradigms to deploy these approaches harmoniously and effectively, and prepare ourselves to tackle the turbulent world we are entering.