Improving Performance: How to Manage the White Space on the Organization Chart

3.9. Using the Three Levels Framework

This framework (summarized in Table 3.2), as well as the process and tools that it has spawned, has evolved over twenty years of research and application in companies, agencies, divisions, departments, and stores. It has been used as:

• A tool for diagnosing and eliminating deficient performance (for example, excessive semiconductor chip manufacturing and delivery cycle time; loss of margins in a retail chain)

• An engine for continuously improving systems that are performing adequately (for example, increasing responsiveness to airlines' needs for unique aircraft configurations; increasing timeliness of telecommunications customer service)

• A roadmap for guiding an organization in a new direction (for example, ...