Operational Excellence is the Ultimate Act of Rethinking
Why Operational Excellence is the Ultimate Act of Rethinking in a Volatile Market
We often fall victim to the illusion of control in the world of business. We invest countless hours in forecasting the unpredictable, lobbying against the inevitable, and trying to influence forces that are fundamentally indifferent to our quarterly reports. In the Canadian edible oils sector, this illusion is particularly acute. You cannot negotiate with the weather in Spain, nor can you reason with the global commodity market. Yet, many organizations continue to fixate on these external variables, treating them as the primary drivers of their success or failure.
But what if the real challenge, and the most profound opportunity, lies not in controlling the uncontrollable, but in mastering the controllable?
This is the core tenet of organizational resilience: the capacity to thrive not despite volatility, but because of a deliberate focus on internal mastery. The external environment, unpredictable harvests, geopolitical shifts, and inflationary headwinds, is merely the backdrop. The true drama unfolds on your production floor.
The Cognitive Trap of Fixation
Why We Focus on the Wrong Variables
As an organizational psychologist, I’ve spent years studying how people and organizations make decisions under uncertainty. A common pattern emerges: when faced with high-stakes, high-volatility situations, we tend to engage in external attribution. It’s easier to blame the market, the weather, or the supply chain than to admit that our internal systems are suboptimal. This is a cognitive shortcut, a form of confirmation bias that reinforces the status quo: “If the problem is external, the solution must also be external.”
But the most successful organizations—the ones that endure and adapt—are those that embrace internal attribution. They ask: “What is the one thing we can change right now that will insulate us from 80% of the external noise?” ¹
For edible oil bottlers and packagers in Canada, the answer is clear: operational precision.
The Volatility Tax
A Case for Rethinking the Status Quo
The data confirms the high-stakes environment. According to Statistics Canada, food prices in stores surged by 11.4% year-over-year in September 2022, the fastest pace since 1981. ² The edible fats and oils category, in particular, saw 12-month growth in the range of 20-30% during parts of 2021-2022. ³ While these numbers reflect the consumer experience, they are a direct consequence of the volatility faced by producers.
Consider the price of Extra Virgin Olive Oil (EVOO). Global prices have seen dramatic swings, dropping from a peak of around USD 8,923 per metric ton in late 2024 to approximately USD 5,821 in late 2025—a decline of nearly 35%. 4 Canada’s olive oil market, which relies entirely on imports, is projected to grow to over $180 million by 2030, but this growth is perpetually shadowed by “fluctuating import costs… due to extreme weather events in exporting countries.” 5
The Hidden Cost of “Good Enough”
The Psychology of Giveaway
In manufacturing, the concept of “giveaway” (over-filling a container to ensure compliance) is often viewed as a necessary evil—a form of insurance against regulatory fines. But this mindset is a profound example of satisficing—accepting a solution that is merely “good enough” rather than pursuing the optimal one. 6
When you are filling 1-liter PET bottles of canola oil or 5-liter jugs of specialty blends, every single gram of over-fill is a direct margin leak. It is product you paid for, processed, and packaged, but for which you receive no revenue.
Let’s quantify the psychological and financial cost of “good enough”:
The difference between the two columns is not just financial; it’s psychological. The “Good Enough” mindset breeds complacency and external dependence. The “Operational Excellence” mindset fosters a culture of continuous improvement and internal accountability.
The Technology of Rethinking
Net-Weight Filling as a Strategic Lever
The shift from “good enough” to “operational excellence” requires a fundamental rethinking of the filling process itself. For decades, volumetric or level-based filling systems were the industry standard. They were simple, but they were also highly susceptible to the very variables that define the edible oils market: temperature, viscosity, and aeration.
Net-weight filling technology, such as that offered by Serac, represents a strategic leap. By measuring the product by weight, the system becomes insensitive to temperature and product aeration, the two variables that constantly sabotage volumetric accuracy.7 This technological pivot transforms the filler from a mere piece of equipment into a margin management system.
The claimed accuracy of approximately ±1 gram per liter (1-sigma) is not just a technical specification; it is a psychological buffer against market volatility.8 If a facility producing 500,000 bottles a month can reduce its average giveaway by just 2 grams per bottle, that translates to a savings of one metric ton of oil per month. When oil costs are high, this is not a marginal saving, it is a survival mechanism.
The Four Questions That Define Your Resilience
To move beyond the illusion of control and toward operational mastery, leaders must ask themselves four uncomfortable, yet essential, questions. These questions force a shift from reacting to the market to mastering the process.
- What is the psychological cost of your current giveaway?
The Rethink: Stop calculating giveaway as a simple cost-per-liter. Start calculating it as a tax on your organizational focus. Every gram over-filled is a gram of product you could have sold, and a gram of margin you surrendered to the “good enough” mindset. If you are averaging 2-3 grams over-fill on 500,000 bottles monthly, you are wasting 1-1.5 metric tons of oil. This is not a technical problem; it is a failure of precision. - How much does your line’s inertia cost you in lost opportunity?The Rethink: The Canadian cooking oil import market was valued at US $1.1 billion in 2022 and is growing. The trend is toward premiumization (EVOO blends, specialty oils) and flexibility in packaging (PET, HDPE, handle-jugs). If your volumetric filler requires hours of downtime and recalibration every time you switch from a thin canola oil to a thick, cold-pressed blend, your line has inertia. This inertia is not just lost time; it is a direct barrier to capitalizing on new, high-margin SKUs. The ability to execute quick changeovers is the definition of organizational agility in manufacturing.
- Are you confusing “busy” with “productive” during changeovers?The Rethink: Downtime is not a break; it is a void of value creation. If your team is “busy” during a changeover—cleaning, recalibrating, and troubleshooting—they are not being productive. A resilient system minimizes the need for human intervention during a change. The goal is not to have the best maintenance team for changeovers, but to have a system that requires the least maintenance. This is the difference between effort and efficiency.
- Is your operational strategy a defense mechanism or a growth engine?The Rethink: When input costs spike, do you immediately look to raise prices or cut labor? Or do you look inward? Operational excellence, driven by precision technology, is not just a defense against margin erosion; it is a growth engine. It frees up capital (by reducing giveaway), increases capacity (by reducing downtime), and enables agility (by simplifying changeovers). It allows you to stabilize your margin, giving you the psychological and financial space to invest in innovation, not just survival.
- What is the psychological cost of your current giveaway?
To move beyond the illusion of control and toward operational mastery, leaders must ask themselves four uncomfortable, yet essential, questions. These questions force a shift from reacting to the market to mastering the process.
The Mastery of the Internal Game
The CEO of Link Pack Group, Jean-Francois Biron, captured this philosophy perfectly: “Peu importe les fluctuations… les embouteilleurs et les transformateurs doivent concentrer leurs efforts sur ce qu’ils peuvent réellement contrôler.” In a world defined by external chaos, the only path to resilience is through internal mastery.
Rethinking your filling line is not about buying a new machine; it’s about re-engineering your margin strategy. It’s about moving from a culture of “good enough” to a culture of precision and excellence. When you partner with technology providers like Serac for net-weight filling and integrators like Link Pack for local expertise, you are not just acquiring equipment, you are deploying a system designed to eliminate the cognitive and financial costs of imprecision.
The future of edible oil bottling belongs to the Originals, the leaders who have the courage to look past the uncontrollable noise of the market and focus on the unthinkable levels of precision achievable within their own four walls. Resilience does not come from influencing the weather in Greece; it comes from mastering your own line!
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