The company strategically chooses the principles that are most relevant to its operations, rather than photocopying the principles from other systems or other companies.

For example, the process industry companies tended to prioritise production levelling, equipment manufacturers tended to prioritise design for-manufacturing and the heavy-vehicle industry tended to prioritise the reduction of batch size more than other industries. These are sensible choices for these industries. Moreover, the company often uses its own name and design in its XPS. This serious choice symbolises sincerity and commitment. It presumably increases employees’ ownership of the programme. Off-the-shelf improvement philosophies do not have these advantages. Second, an XPS is a strategic improvement programme, not a project like many other improvement initiatives. The XPS brings consistency and durability to the improvement work.

It also reduces flavour of the month approach.  An XPS is a shared and systematic approach for all plants and employees in a firm. It creates a common improvement language, which leads to easier transfer of experiences, principles and practices between units. This aspect makes the most sense for companies that have several plants because it eliminates the need for each plant to develop and maintain their own improvement programme.