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Continuous Improvement
| Guest post by: John Heap |
Article Overview: Firstly, this article asks the question ... "Is Continuous Improvement possible?" With a slight caveat ,the answer is 'yes'. It then sets out how you can achieve continuous improvement - without adopting any of the commercial 'methodologies, without using expensive consultants. You will , of course, have to put in some effort ... mainly thought! But it is possible - for any busines.
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Continuous Improvement
Continuous
improvement is a kind of holy grail for businessmen ... how do we keep making
the organisation better.
Firstly,
we should ask … Is continuous improvement possible?
Well,
yes and no. “No”, because from time to
time, it is important to consolidate change and improved performance, to make
sure you lock in the gains that a change has brought about. You can then start
to improve again. So it is a repeating
process … but there are those times when you must make sure you – and everyone
else – knows what you are supposed to be doing to realise the benefits of what
you have just improved.
So,
how do we set about a process on continuous improvement?
Well,
of course, there are lots of ‘methodologies’ out there … and an amazing number
of consultants who will implement them for you.
(Of course many of them will come with their ‘pet’ solution and try to
make it fit your organisation … rather than diagnosing what you need and
delivering that.)
So,
you could try ‘Lean’ or ‘Business Process improvement’ or any one of a number
of similar methodologies and approaches.
But
I’m assuming you are a relatively small business … and a relatively ‘tight’
one. You don’t want to spend money unnecessarily
... and, luckily, you don’t have to.
All
the methodologies simply offer some kind of structure to a process that
essentially consists of:
·
Diagnosis
– what is wrong … or what do we want to try and improve?
·
Development
– what are the ideas we can think of to improve things?
·
Implementation
– how do we make the change?
Diagnosis
is sometimes simple … when a problem is evident. (Sometimes the problem might
be that people are ‘unhappy’ with something … even if you don’t think it’s a real
problem, it is if it is affecting performance.)
Sometimes we simply look systematically at all our processes.
(The
reason we look at processes, rather than activities or jobs, is that there is no
point in improving part of a process if we just run into a bottleneck further
down the process. And ‘process’ is
simply the set of activities that accomplishes one of our main tasks – the process
of getting orders from customers, the process of executing that order, the
process of delivery, and so on.
Look
at a process … draw the major steps out on paper (it doesn’t matter whether you
use a ‘proper’ flowcharting or process mapping technique, as long as you can
understand what is going on) and annotate them showing how long it takes, who
does it, what it costs (roughly) and so on.
Then
ask yourself the following question :
Which
are the most important activities in this process ... the ones that have the
biggest effect on delivering value to our customers, the ones that cost us the
most money?
Then,
for each one, ask:
Why
are we doing this? (How does it add to
the value the customer receives from us?)
Could
we do something else instead?
Could
we do it in another way?
Why
does that person or that team do it?
Why
do we do it at that point in the process?
The
aim is to eliminate activities from the process if we can. If we can’t eliminate them, we try to combine
them? If we can’t combine them, we try
to simplify them? If we can’t simplify
them we try to do them for less money?
And we try to do all of this without reducing – and preferably enhancing
– the value the customer receives!
We
ask questions … and we think hard about the answers. It’s a very simple – but very effective –
process.
When
we think we have some ideas worth pursuing, we interrogate them to see if they
are technically, organisationally and financially feasible.
Will
it work? What might stop it working?
Is
this right for our organisation? Do we
have the ability to make these changes?
What
is the payback from any investment?
If
we get positive answers, we set about planning the change? We plan … and prepare. We might need to train staff, get in new
equipment (and get it working properly) or make a number of other changes. We
must ‘set of on the right foot’ … if there are problems when we make the change,
people can lose confidence. If we plan
and execute well, things go smoothly and the change is seen to be a success.
Then
we move on to the next process … with a success behind us … and with confidence
we can do this. We can make continuous improvements
… sometimes small, sometimes big … but lots of changes that make our organisation
better ... and better.
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Article Tags: business improvement, continuous improvement
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