OpEx Spotlight: Don White, Director, Deployment Leader, Operational Excellence at Cardinal Health

At the Center for Operational Excellence, we work alongside our members to foster a problem-solving culture that’s grounded in tried-and-true operational excellence tools, and that’s constant and far-reaching. One way we do that is by connecting industry executives, Fisher College of Business faculty, and our consortium of member companies. By learning from each other and accessing the resources Ohio State has to offer, member companies have the constant support needed to chart a path to excellence that builds resilience and adaptability in a rapidly changing world.

Our new OpEx Spotlight series highlights members of our OpEx community and allows them to share their experiences and perspectives with continuous improvement, organizational change, operational excellence, supply chain, operations, and any niche they feel passionate about. 

We're excited to introduce COE Board Member, Don White. Don is an Operational Excellence Deployment Leader within the Pharmaceutical Segment at Cardinal Health. Don leads the continuous improvement efforts for all non-supply chain, transactional business units in the segment including Sales, Sales Operations, Finance, Marketing & Connected Care.  His team of six LSS Black Belts are responsible for integrating Operational Excellence philosophies and methods to improve business performance, enhance the customer experience, and drive transactional efficiencies.  This includes deploying the Cardinal Health Operating System across his supported organizations as well as coordinating Op Ex learning opportunities for employees in these areas. Don’s Lean journey began when he joined Cardinal Health in June 2009 in DC operations at Cardinal’s Groveport, OH facility. 

Prior to joining Cardinal Health, Don has a variety of business experiences ranging from Sales, LTL Freight Operations, Distribution Center Operations, Product Management and Restaurant Management.  These experiences came from time spent with NOVUS Auto Glass, NationsWay Transport, Limited Logistics Services and Max & Erma’s Restaurants.  Don has a bachelor’s degree in Production and Operations Management from Miami University.  Don earned his Black Belt certification from Cardinal Health in 2014.

How are you leveraging operational excellence to improve your career and/or organization?

I am leveraging OpEx with my team of Black Belts to improve the performance of the back-office teams we support, to drive financial benefits for the company and to develop Lean talent for the organization. Individually, I am working with senior business leaders as we prepare to launch new products, organizational designs and technology initiatives to properly identify future process gaps and prepare countermeasures so we can flawlessly execute upon go-live.

Is there an area of topic within operational excellence that you’re most passionate about? Why? 

Employee Empowerment. While there will always be a limited set of LSS Black Belts / CI Specialists in any organization, by driving front-line employee empowerment and allowing them to manage their work using lean tools such as Visual Management, RCPS, Labor Balancing, Standard Work and A3's/Kaizens...

You not only accelerate process improvement by exponentially growing the employees engaged in improvement activities, but you also enable personal ownership, job satisfaction, and skill growth in the front line associates who may not have other venues to do so.

How did you get into this type of work? Why is it important to you?

I was introduced to statistical process control in college in the '90's, but did not see any form of LSS or Lean applied in my professional career until I joined Cardinal Health in warehouse operations in 2009. I had come from a Columbus based distributor who only was concerned about productivity. They traditionally improved performance by firing the lowest 10% of performers in a regular basis and hoping "they got lucky" in the hiring process. This just never felt right. LSS provided management environment and discipline to focus on the process, not the people, to drive performance creating a better work environment and greater results for all.

What advice do you have for other OpEx professionals?

Focus on your flexibility! In my experience, As LSS practitioners we live in a world of standard work and statistical analysis.

It's important to maintain the rigor in our methods to ensure sustainable improvement, however, don't be afraid to flex your teaching and application to make the concepts accessible and approachable to teams that are just starting their lean journeys.

We teach iterative improvement, but many times ourselves do not focus on delivering one, initial Lean win that is valuable to the business and generates buy-in that we can build from and instead may bury a new team in the entirety of Lean dogma that makes it impossible to comprehend or execute.