Learning Operations Science means
Making Better Decisions Faster
OSI learning programs are designed to help leaders and teams be more successful more often by developing and applying a practical, scientific understanding of operations behavior.
Our Philosophy
How OSI Thinks About Learning
Most improvement efforts fail not because people lack effort or tools, but because they lack an accurate, shared understanding of how their operations behave. OSI approaches learning as the development of intuition, not the transfer of techniques.
The goal is to help people better understand why outcomes occur so they can use their existing resources and programs more effectively, make better decisions under uncertainty, and align teams across functions.
This emphasis makes OSI learning especially relevant for leaders who must balance competing priorities, manage variability, and align teams across an organization.
Learning operations science strengthens intuition so that better decisions are made more quickly. When leaders and teams completely understand how their operations behave, they make better decisions faster, with greater confidence, and with stronger alignment across their organizations. They apply tools and techniques more efficiently and more effectively.
A curated tour of options for learning and successfully applying operations science.
— Emile Tohme, General Manager | UL Solutions; formerly President & COO, multiple manufacturing companiesI love that the science tests and validates intuition. This came up time and time again in the course. The science enables us to test, and often validate, the intuitive ideas and actions of employees. It creates ownership and buy-in for the strategies, tactics, and measures that will drive results.
Purpose
Learning as a Foundation for Application
Learning operations science is not an end in itself. It provides a common language and logic that establishes much better coordination of effort, improved identification of root cause problems, and clearer focus to improve delivery, cost, and response time.
Many organizations use OSI learning to innovate new solutions for long-standing problems, prepare high-potential individuals to expand into new roles, and accelerate the progress of existing continuous improvement efforts.
Innovate Solutions
Operations science gives leaders a new lens for seeing their operations, one grounded in the science of flow, variability, and capacity rather than imitation of what others have done. You will see different, powerful solutions to the same challenges you have been facing for years.
Develop Leaders
The most effective operations leaders don't just manage processes, they engage their people in an applied, scientific approach to understanding and controlling the processes. Would you trust a good salesperson to be your doctor? OSI learning is a must for anyone who is leading operations.
Accelerate Success
Operations science provides the predictive control that makes improvement stick. It enables leaders and teams to accelerate efficiency and effectiveness and sustain those improvements over the long term.
Start Here
Start With a Free Introduction
For most people, the best place to begin is a short introduction to operations science. The OSI Insider page contains a link to three free intro videos covering the basic concepts of operations science and a framework for application. Total viewing time is about 30 minutes.
Formal Programs
Individual Learning Programs
The OSI’s online Learning Management System provides great opportunities for individual learners or a way to coordinate team learning. There are entertaining videos, downloadable study guides, evaluation questions, and an AI chatbot to help you to quickly learn operations science concepts.
Flow Leadership Certification
A program of five courses that build systematically from foundational principles to applied leadership. Participants begin with the core science — capacity, cycle time, and flow dynamics — and progress to a capstone course covering design, implementation, control, finance, and action planning.
- A rigorous understanding of capacity, cycle time, and flow dynamics
- The ability to diagnose why performance problems persist even when improvement efforts are underway
- Working knowledge of how to design, implement, and control operations for consistent results
- A seven-step action plan for applying operations science leadership without waiting for more data
Executive Flow Leadership
Executive Flow Leadership
Operations science has direct implications for how senior leaders set strategy, evaluate performance, design systems, and lead people.
Executive Flow Leadership covers the full scope of operations leadership, in a single short course, from aligning demand and capacity as a strategic priority, to implementation planning and control, to the disconnects between operations, finance, and accounting that quietly undermine performance.
- Strategy and design — aligning demand, capacity, and response time
- Control and measurement — how to know if operations are in control and what to measure
- Finance and accounting — the three disconnects that create persistent misalignment
- People — how operations science supports and strengthens existing improvement efforts
- A concrete action plan — seven steps for applying operations science leadership
Audience
Who OSI Learning Is For
OSI learning programs are particularly valuable for organizations that want shared understanding and better coordination, not isolated expertise and individual “firefighters.”
- Senior leaders seeking better system-level judgment
- Any leader new to operations or project management
- Operations and supply chain leaders responsible for performance
- Project and program leaders managing complex, interdependent work
- Teams preparing for training or broader organizational adoption
For mentored team training and powerful custom training to achieve results quickly
How Will You Succeed?
Contact us to determine how OSI learning can best be applied in your organization.