Continuous Improvement is a fairly self-explanatory name, but in order for manufacturing in your plant to continuously improve, so do the skills of your workers. Emphasizing employee training will pay back dividends, not only in increased efficiency, but also in the moral boost workers get from worker for a company that invests in them. Training is so important that some companies have even started making yearly training non-optional. While management should direct most of this initiative, this part of continuous improvement implementation is a great time to look for worker feedback on the kind of training they would want offered.
One of the basic initial steps when introducing continuous improvement in your company culture is to really push the idea of quality. Make it a high-visibility issue, such as posting Statistical Process Charts on the walls.
Quality control inspectors might be a hassle in the beginning, both for management and for workers, but over time the pressure of an overseer results in better practices and care in their work. However, to fully maximize a quality-driven, continuously improving culture, there needs to be rewards, too.
Money is always a great motivator, and bonuses for good work never go unmissed, but other kinds of rewards also work as great moral boosts. Posting the spc sheets publicly and giving a pizza party to the process workers with the fewest variations are two great, high-impact yet resource-light ideas.
Giving workers on every level the attention they deserve when instituting continuous improvement in your company will ensure that continuous improvement becomes a focus rather than a side project. Trends can be identified and comparisons made. There may be a positive correlation when one measure goes up, the other goes up , a negative correlation when one measure goes up, the other goes down or no correlation between selected measures. Analyze performance. Here is where the improvement effort begins to take shape as we gain an understanding of how we are performing in relation to our targets.
We will also gain insight as to why some targets are routinely met while we encounter difficulty trying to meet others. Previously unanticipated dependencies, supplier issues, equipment reliability or resource constraints may be revealed during this analysis.
Correct performance. As each root cause is identified, appropriate corrective action can be applied, leading to the required performance improvement. Review performance. Of course, reviewing performance is continuous. An improvement made today may simply be the starting point for another improvement required in the future.
Even if the analyzing, correcting and reviewing steps need to be repeated numerous times, their ultimate purpose is to drive measurable improvement in the organization. Ideally, the employees who own these measures will track, analyze, correct and review performance. However, they may need some help to do this, and this is an area where managers can lend support. In every case, an automation tool like SolveXia can assist in eliminating waste and helping with continuous improvement.
The automation tool is designed to be accessible to all relevant parties, and by automating data and processes, errors are inherently reduced. Continuous improvement can be made as you go or a full-fledged approach to tackle significant issues at once:.
This type of process improvement is done as you recognise problems during a process. The upside of this type of improvement is that it is relatively cheaper and faster than breakthrough continuous improvement. Say you are running a process and notice a mistake. This could be a typo in a brochure or an error in data. You can fix the error as you go; however, to ensure that the actual process moves forward in its next iteration without the same error requires that you communicate the change.
So, incremental continuous improvement is beneficial so long as the person who fixes the mistake brings it up to the rest of the organisation. Breakthrough continuous improvement happens the other way around. Rather than making a change during the process itself, it involves targeting the process for improvement and then strategically approaching the change as a united front.
These are typically more substantial items for correction that require an entire team to implement. Continuous improvement strives to accomplish two main goals, namely, streamline workflows and reduce waste.
Together, these work to reduce costs and optimise outputs, whether that be the quality of a product or service. Most processes require multiple touchpoints or parties involved. These always have room for improvement. Project managers and executives have models and data to review the cost of every project. With continuous process improvement, they can assess where the fees are too high and then work towards reducing costs and waste to make a process more efficient.
Instead, it works best when it is part of the company culture and involves everyone within an organisation. Here are some considerations for how to make continuous process improvement the norm within your business:.
Set reasonable goals. When setting out for improvement, you want to break down larger projects into smaller, measurable pieces.
This will help to reduce overwhelm, as well as keep everyone involved on the right track to succeed. You should continuously seek feedback from customers, stakeholders and employees throughout your operations. This feedback will not only help locate opportunities for improvement, but it can also offer new perspectives and breed new ideas.
Not only should you breed a culture where each employee feels empowered to notice inefficiencies and offer solutions, but you should also develop a rewarding culture to be motivational. For example, you can create rewards or develop an accessible system for employees to share feedback continuously. Continuous process improvement offers a method for your business to get better at any point in time.
Whether you choose to implement incremental or breakthrough changes or a mixture of both, you can help to reduce waste and optimise outcomes. The above continuous improvement examples and strategies can help you achieve your business goals. Like any type of process improvement, you want to remember to track and monitor any changes to ensure you are following towards improvement, rather than hurting any other part of the process.
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