Continuous improvement

So far, productivity improvement action has been prompted by performance measure 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”

Continuous improvement

So far, productivity improvement action has been prompted by performance measure 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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Books – Our ‘Productivity’ trilogy

Past Posts – 1. Productivity overall

Past Posts – 2. Scope to improve

Past Posts – 3. The Productivity revolution

Past Posts – 4. Productivity drivers

Past Posts – 5. Productivity improvement process

Past Posts – 6. Corporate plans

Past Posts – 7. Cardinal measures

Past Posts – 8. Financial cardinals

Past Posts – 9. Customer cardinals

Past Posts – 10. Productivity & Waste cardinals

Past Posts – 11. Employee Motivation cardinal

Past Posts – 12. Corporate Knowledge cardinal

Past Posts – 13. Targets

Past Posts – 14. Productivity Analyses

Past Posts – 15. Special improvement projects

Past Posts – 16. Organisation level improvement

Past Posts – 17. Process level improvement

Past Posts – 18. Task level improvement

Past Posts – 19. Continuous improvement – CI

Past Posts – 20. National productivity

Past Posts – 21. Global productivity