Continuous improvement (CI) projects

So far, productivity improvement has been prompted by cardinal alarm bells ringing

However, managers should not wait for this to happen – they should be forever looking for different ways to improve

‘Kaizen’ is the Japanese word for continuous improvement – kai is change, zen is good – it’s the Japanese way of doing business

There’s no special improvement projects involved

CI involves everyone in an organisation, all managers and employees, working in small teams to come up with ways to make small improvements “day in, day out”

Aims of CI:

To make lots of minor improvements to products, services or processes
To extend product and service ranges
To offer the same product or service at a lower price (or higher margin)
To provide a new or better product or service – at a higher price even
To incorporate a new convenience (add more value)
To create a new (customer) want
To find new uses for old products

Peter Drucker

Every small contribution to productivity improvement is deemed to be useful
As Dr Deming noted: “The big gain is not the £500 per year that the men saved, it’s that the men can take pride in the improvement”
But when thousands of small, incremental improvements are made, the big gain can also be enormous financially for the organisation
Just as it was for David Brailsford, UK ‘Team Sky’ coach, when winning the 2012 Tour de France – he put it all down to “the aggregation of marginal gains”

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