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Encouraging Productivity Improvement with Flawless Execution

Afterburner, Inc. was founded in 1996 by James D. Murphy, a U.S. Air Force fighter pilot, who realized the value of the productivity improvement tools he learned in the ‘zero tolerance for error’ world of military aviation and the usefulness of their application to businesses. The company’s business process management consultants have since trained over 1.5 million managers and executives in the simple, scalable, continuous improvement processes of Flawless Execution℠. This model, developed by Afterburner team members from both their business experiences and in strategic and tactical military execution, centers on its Three E’s – Empower, Equip and Embed.

Empower includes keynote speeches on effective business process management solutions as well as the legendary “Afterburner Day” team-building experience, while Equip provides training, consulting, and software services through a variety of productivity improvement methods. Afterburner also provides train-the-trainer style, multi-day courses through its Flawless Execution℠ University (FLEX U) and on-site workshops with knowledgeable business process management consultants. Embed, a strategic human capital placement service for elite military professionals transitioning from military to civilian careers, trains candidates in the Flawless Execution℠ Model, and then places them with leaning forward partners and clients.

How Our Business Process Management Consultants
Change the Way You Do Business

For James D. Murphy, Flawless Execution℠ struck him as an epiphany as he walked to the flight line at Luke Air Force Base in Arizona to climb into his $30 million F-15 Eagle for the first time. Only 18 months before that day in 1989, Murphy was selling copiers door to door to small companies in central Kentucky. Before joining the Air Force, he was literally living on his family's small farm, going from farm boy to fighter pilot in less than 18 months! How did this happen? What were the principles behind the flawlessly executed mission plans he and pilots like him flew every day? Murphy realized that these productivity improvement principles could be used in corporations as well as in the military. From that point on, Flawless Execution℠ – and the business process management solutions it presented – became his life's work.

After leaving active duty, Murphy drove the sales of a small paint company from $5 to $52 million in less than three years by utilizing the business process management solutions found in the Flawless Execution℠ model. Having proven its value through greater sales and productivity improvement, Murphy formed his own company, Afterburner Inc., and made the front page of the Marketplace section of the Wall Street Journal in 1997. Murphy and an elite, tight knit team of fighter pilots continue to create cutting edge keynote speeches and day-long team-building seminars in which the Afterburner team dresses in olive-drab flight suits and delivers the Plan-Brief-Execute-Debrief cycle to major corporations all over the world.

Afterburner also launched its Corporate Wingman Program℠, certifying a team of Afterburner coaches who leads the way to Afterburner's consulting services. This follows on the heels of a successful two year coaching and consulting engagement with Pfizer's infomatics division.

By 2005, retired U.S. Air Force Colonel John A. Warden III trained Murphy and key Afterburner personnel in his Prometheus Process. Detailed in Winning in Fast Time (Venturist Publishing 2002), Warden and his co-author Leland A. Russell describe in detail how Warden utilized open planning to rapidly develop the phenomenally successful air campaign against Saddam Hussein in 1990, Instant Thunder. Murphy, realizing the perfect synergy between the Flawless Execution Engine and the Prometheus Process, adapted it with Warden's assistance into the complete strategic and tactical model that it has become. In 2005, Murphy launched his second book, Flawless Execution (Harper Collins 2005), that described productivity improvement principles in detail.

In 2008, Afterburner successfully launched and deployed Flawless Execution℠ University (FLEX U), training and certifying over 300 managers in productivity improvement tools and business process management solutions in the first year alone. Today, Afterburner is considered the world's leading authority on organizational execution and boasts 23% of the U.S. Fortune 500 as clients in addition to many global 1,000 companies. Afterburner has executed its services in over 38 countries, has offices in Europe and Australia, and is currently opening operations in Asia. Ask Afterburner how you can encourage productivity improvement within your organization.