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Continuous Improvement Development Guide, PHASE 7: World Class Performance

Some elite companies pass from a strong continuous improvement culture to one that drives world class performance. These top tier companies continually stay ahead of the competition, and regularly make game-changing breakthroughs.

This final phase of the continuous improvement model is an extremely interesting one. It does not have a lot of supporting sections, as there are not many specific things that separate a good or great company from a world class one. That just means that you can’t just add new ingredients like A3 reports to the mix and become world class. Rather, world class companies come into being because to their ability to do all the little things extremely well.

By Jeff Hajek, ago

Continuous Improvement Development Guide, PHASE 6: Keeping Momentum

Even though this endeavor you have been working on to build a continuous improvement culture is commonly called a “Lean journey”, the name is not entirely accurate. A journey implies an end. It is more like an adventure or an exploration. Regardless of what you call it, though, if you are successful at it you will eventually uncover the great paradox of creating a business management system that drives a continuous improvement culture. By definition, you can never finish building your system. Because it is so focused on continuous improvement, the structure will not just uncover opportunities with your production and support processes. It will identify ways to improve itself.

By Jeff Hajek, ago

Continuous Improvement Development Guide, PHASE 4: Building the Foundation

Overview

In this phase you will build the foundation of your business management system. The focus here is creating the structure upon which you can apply the variety of tools that support Lean operations. The team will emphasize creating flow and eliminating waste. It will also become extremely accustomed to using Standard Work and other forms of standardization to stabilize processes. Finally, we roll out kaizen events during this phase.

By Jeff Hajek, ago

Continuous Improvement Development Guide PHASE 1: Introduction and Exploration

Phase 1 of our Continuous Improvement Development System is the “Introduction and Exploration” phase. This is the time when people start acting on their curiosity and actively seek information about Lean or Six Sigma of whatever continuous improvement discipline they are considering. It is probably worth noting at this point that we use the terms “Lean” and “Continuous Improvement” rather interchangeably. In truth, Lean is just one specific form of continuous improvement, but since it is rather open to new ideas, in practice anything you would do in a generic CI program, you can do in Lean. And any generic CI program would adopt any Lean tools and principles that work. In essence, they are identical.

But regardless of how you frame what you are going to do, some people will have a bit of knowledge; others will be completely blank slates. Some people will be skeptical; others will be instantly convinced. Still others will never make the leap to start a transformation. What that means is that the time it will take you to move through this phase will vary, and the path will be unique. So, what should you do?

By Jeff Hajek, ago