Operations That Operate

Six Sigma. Lean. Agile. Kaizen. Your operations consultant is drowning you in Japanese words and statistical models while your actual operations are held together with duct tape and prayer. They’re selling you Fortune 500 solutions for a 5 person company problem.

I ran the daily operations of a Hong Kong energy company, built a skincare manufacturing facility from scratch (yes, got the GMP certification), and managed everything from oil filtration to retail stores. Real operations isn’t about frameworks – it’s about making things work with what you have.

This section cuts through operational BS to show you what actually matters: building systems that don’t require a PhD to run, scaling without the consultant frameworks, managing cash flow when growth gurus tell you to ignore it, and creating processes that work in the real world where your employees aren’t all MBAs. Practical operations from someone who’s actually operated.