What High-Performing Facilities Do Differently

Walk into the right facility and you’ll feel it within 30 seconds. Things are moving, people know their roles, pathways are marked, the floor is clean. Walk into the wrong one and you’ll feel that too, and not in a good way.

But what’s actually happening behind the feeling? That’s the question at the center of this episode of Clocking In, where host Mike Smith sits down with Lisa Colles, a Senior Specialist of Engineering, Distribution, and Maintenance who spent her career building exactly those kinds of operations at Eli Lilly.

There Is No Secret Formula, But There Are Signals

A lot of facility leaders are doing exactly what Plankton does in SpongeBob: spending their energy chasing some secret formula, convinced it’s the one thing standing between them and a high-performing operation. The truth is, there’s no single formula. But there are signals. And once you know what to look for, they’re hard to miss.

Process-Driven, Not People-Driven

If your facility depends on your best people having a good day, it is not high-performing. If your operation relies on your best person being at their best every day, you don’t have systems. You have hope. High-performing facilities work the same on your worst day as they do on your best. That only happens when processes drive the operation, not personalities.

Safety and Efficiency Are Not Opposites

The myth is everywhere. Facility leaders who feel like they have to choose between safe and efficient are making a false trade-off. The data tells a different story. Slowing forklift speeds by just 2–3 mph causes the expected panic and then delivers unexpected results. Fewer incidents. Less equipment damage. Fewer injuries. And operators who find creative ways to recover the efficiency on their own. Your employees are your company. Without them, you have nothing.