Support from High Management
Continuous improvement is not only a methodology, but also a spirit. All units in the company should have the concept of continuous improvement deeply rooted in their hearts. When dealing with daily processes, they can think about how to do better, and the company can continue to make progress.
Many Toyota’s results of continuous improvement can be collected on the Internet; General Electric (GE), 3M’s introduction of Six Sigma results, these results show that companies can continuously improve themselves can stand out in the fierce competition.
The person in charge of CIP can introduce the results of continuous improvement to the top management, so that the management understands the importance of continuous improvement and is willing to provide resource support, which is the most important step.
Any project with weak management support will leads to failure.
Link to Company Strategy
Shouting slogans cannot make it happen.
Key Performance Indicators(KPI) related to the company strategy should be set up, so that CIP activities can be linked with the company’s daily operations, and the spirit and methods of CIP can be further integrated into routine work.
For example, if the company’s operating target is to increase its profits by 10% this year, it can further develop sub-goals for the operating target of each department.
- Procurement department can set a metric to negotiate price with suppliers to reduce procurement costs.
- R&D department can set a metric to improve development efficiency to shorten time to market.
- Production unit can set metric for yield improvement to reduce internal costs.
In this way, departments will actively adopt improvement methods to optimize their own operations, naturally linking continuous improvement activities to daily operations.
Build up Culture
At beginning, promote a very large improvement project such as Business Process Re-engineering(BPR) is impractical. Companies that have not promoted CIP yet should start with small projects. Through small process improvement, organization members can understand the application of continuous improvement methods, and can see improvement results in a short period of time. Organizational members will have a greater sense of achievement. .
A typical example is the Quality Control Circle (QCC). The quality control circle is usually organized by the first-line production unit. Problems encountered are dealt with quickly.
During the process of the quality control circle, the members can learn how to use the QC 7 tools, descriptive statistics and process data to draw charts, and learn to establish standardized documents for improvement results and calculate improvement benefits.
Through above process, operators can understand the actual contribution of their daily work to the company, and encourage front-line employees to put forward more improvement suggestions, thereby establishing a positive improvement cycle.
Create regular continuous improvement project presentations is a great way to motivate. Project team members can be awarded by bonuses, better performance evaluation, additional allowances, medals…etc. So that CIP activities can establish the credibility in the company.
Establish Resource
To enrich continuous improvement activities, expansion of CIP team should be taken into account.
Diversity is the most advantage for expansion. In the team, some people are experts in Lean and production lines; some people understand DFSS (Design for Six Sigma) and the application of complex experimental design; some people have IT background that can help on digital transformation and automation projects.
Diversified professionals can help the company to improve in all directions, and can provide enough suggestions for various types of improvement projects to assist.
Regularly arranging appropriate education and training is also critical. If there enough resources, developing internal instructors is very helpful. Internal instructors can better understand the company’s process and professional terms, and can provide trainee with the best experience during the training.
The type of education and training can also be adjusted according to the company type. For example, if the company focuses on manufacturing, implementing Lean or Six Sigma is beneficial for production line improvement; if the company focuses on research and development, DFSS, FMEA, TRIZ, or design thinking are good choices.
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