MANAGING FOR OPERATIONAL EXCELLENCE IN AUTOMOTIVE COMPANIES IN ROMANIA. A QUALITATIVE RESEARCH

he paper discusses the issue of operational excellence in automotive companies active in Romania. Operational excellence is the strategy for organizations striving to deliver a combination of quality, price and ease of purchase, and service, that no other organization in their market, or industry, can match. The paper discusses the degree of application in companies from automotive industry of the main seven principles of operational excellence and the main features of the process aimed to achieve operational excellence. Another topic discussed refers to key performance indicators (KPIs) of operational excellence that are used by companies. The research method is qualitative and uses the interview as instrument. The findings indicate that automotive companies in Romania are applying most of the seven principles, and that some just started the process of achieving operational excellence and therefore are applied only to some extent. The main tool for achieving operational excellence is Continuous Improvement used on all levels of the company. We found that companies use a KPI system with several layers of KPI’s, such as cost improvement savings (increased efficiency, reduces waste,…), cost improvement savings on material (WIP reduction), GPPH (good pieces/hour/operator), IPPH (indirect labor overhead hours/ production volume, and others. Conclusions and recommendations are formulated.