Colombia's economy in general and in Latin America is undergoing a crisis of recession which has led to the liquidation or disappearance of several companies in all sectors within it. For a variety of factors, one of the most affected countries is Colombia. In particular, Cali has been affected by this process that has led to a dangerous increase in unemployment rates. Although the effects of the crisis have been felt in all companies, those most affected are small and medium-sized companies that lack the resources or infrastructure to undertake improvement programs that allow them to survive.

The model proposed in this paper aims to improve the operational efficiency of enterprises through the use of groups or teams, made up of people working in the various areas where improvement opportunities are identified. These groups are trained by the managers or supervisors in simple techniques of teamwork, identification, analysis and problem-solving and decision making. The operational efficiency of a machine, area or section is defined as the value of the gross contribution margin per unit that unit of time.

This margin is simply the difference between the value of units produced and the direct costs of materials and labor employees. The group's aim is to identify the factors of the machine, area or section that affect this variable and start working in which Pareto dominate the causes that affect it in order to maximize this efficiency. It is easy to see that the factors affecting this variable is the waste of materials, machinery downtime and operating speed of them. It is necessary therefore to have a checklist that allows us to analyze these factors to construct a Pareto tell us which of them work. It will be necessary also to have references or benchmarks that allow us to know how far we can improve and what goals we must achieve. The work groups or teams is to identify the causes that influence the key factors affecting the efficiency and identify actions for improvement.