The Operational Excellence (OpEx) Division Best Practice Competition

The Operational Excellence Division of IISE welcomes applications from organizational teams for the Operational Excellence Division Best Practice Award 2025.

The IISE Operational Excellence Division Best Practice Award recognizes organizations for innovative and effective implementation of Operational Excellence. These could include Lean, Six Sigma, and other innovative methods, principles, and practices that deliver exemplary business performance improvement. This award will promote the successful implementation of OpEx principles by recognizing the best in class industries and sharing their stories with others. The OpEx award is a very prestigious award for a team and their industry. The award will be announced to the top three teams and be presented at the IISE Annual Conference & Expo at the Renaissance Atlanta Waverly Hotel & Convention Center, taking place May 31-June 3, 2025, in Atlanta, Georgia.

Eligibility Criteria

  • Any team, two or more members, of any organization who want to showcase their successful implementation of OpEx concepts.
  • The team must demonstrate innovative uses of OpEx tools and techniques for its measurable outcomes.
  • There is no limit on the number of entries from an organization.
  • At least one member of the team must be a member of IISE and belong to the Operational Excellence Division.

Awarding Process

  • All entries will be pre-screened to select up to four finalist teams.
  • All finalist teams will be required to attend the IISE Annual Conference & Expo and present their cases.
  • Top three teams will be selected and announced before the Tuesday morning keynote.

Evaluation Criteria

  • Innovativeness of application.
  • Clear, measurable performance objectives, and how the team met them?
  • The approach is simple and straightforward.
  • Creative use of tools, techniques, process, and systems.
  • The organization realized significant and quantifiable outcomes, such as cost reduction, lead time reduction, quality improvement, safety improvement, etc.
  • Demonstrate at least six months of sustained or improved metrics.
  • The quality of the presentation including problem statement, clear descriptions, and metrics with visuals.

Submission Process

To ensure consistency in judging, submit your entry via the submission form. Entries should include:

  • A completed submission form
  • Support letter from senior executive officers/management of the organization
  • Credentials of team members (This may include related experience, education, recognition, etc.,)
  • Project presentation

Applicants must send their submissions electronically – preferably as an email attachment. In case of large electronic documents, applicants may upload them in an online repository (i.e. Dropbox) and provide the access to the chair of the committee.

Submit Form

Important Dates (Deadlines)

  • Submissions are due February 9, 2025
  • Winners/Finalists will be notified by March 15, 2025

Committee Chairs

Chad Demore
Cecilia Martinez Leon
Mukul Parkhe

Conflict of Interest Policy

  • Societies and divisions must follow standard conflict of interest guidelines. Those guidelines include, but are not limited to:
  • Officers and Board members of the S/D should be ineligible for awards during the period of their service, without approval by the Senior VP for Technical Operations (SVP). Exceptions may only be made by the SVP when awards are time sensitive (i.e., a Student Best Paper Award for a Student Board Member, when the student is graduating), and the impacted board member(s) or officer(s) must recuse themselves from the award process. For awards that are not time-sensitive, the nominee should wait until their Officer or Board service is complete to be nominated.
  • The awards committee (or judging committee) should not include members who have either a personal or professional relationship with the nominees. For example, a faculty member should not be judging a paper competition where a student from the same university is a nominee for best student paper award.
  • The awards committee (or judging committee) should actively change its membership on a rotating basis from year to year to ensure fairness, equity, and diversity. That is, some members of the judging committee should roll off the committee and new members should roll on.

2024 Winners

1st Place:

Amtrak 

Robert Colorafi

"Amtrak Limits Compliance and Collision Avoidance System"


2nd Place:

Perfect Planner, LLC.

Thomas Beil

"Perfect Planner: Reinventing Material Planning & Procurement"


3rd Place:

Flextronics Zhuhai

Jason Wang

"Lean Journey Leading to Transformation"


2023  Winners

1st Place:  
Flextronics Wuzhong
Qin Cai, Kah Hoe Lee, Cherry Zhou, HB Zhu, Andy Yang, PF Tan, Joyce He, Perry Huang, Carey Zhou, Sky Huang, Allan Wang, Yi Yang, Fancy Cheng, Yang Zhang.
“Wuzhong Transformation-Embracing the Opportunities”

2nd Place:  
Flextronics Althofen
Iris Leitgeb, Manuel Krammer , Viktoria Harrer, Michael Rauter, Georg Fleischhacker, Marko Vigele,  Dirk Paganal, Gernot Kopp, Fabian Oberlecher.
“Digital Transformation of a Brownfield Facility”

3rd Place (TIE):  
Flextronics Zhuhai
Liping Liang, David Liu , Arthur Huang, John Liang, Zhong Xiong, Tony Li, Ansheng Zheng, Gary Feng, Homer Huang, Quanping Qiu, Catherine Su, Vincent Lin, Tiffany He, Roger Cheung, 
“Zhuhai B17 Kaizen to Business Needs (KTBN)”

Flextronics Sorocaba
Daniele Silva, Andre Silveira, Andre Stabile, Diego Canarine, Adriano Isaac, Eli Domingues, Raphael Costa, Jorge A. Silva, Patricia Campos, Guilherme Schrepel, Cristina Belli, Daiana Teodoro, Carina Oliveira.
“Flex - Sinctronics Zero Waste and Recycling Eco-System Best Practices”

Past Winners

Operational Excellence Division Page

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