Tracking Advancement in Your Ongoing Efforts to Elevate Performance
In the realm of business, a continuous improvement (CI) approach has emerged as a powerful tool for driving growth and success. This strategy, which emphasises ongoing, data-driven, and proactive process improvement, is a departure from traditional annual corporate check-ups.
A case in point is the implementation of a CI maturity model at a large corporation, where annual audits were conducted by a plant manager from a different location. These audits, while providing a snapshot of progress, were found to be less effective than a system involving regular feedback and continuous improvement.
The Manufacturing Excellence Audit (MEA), a comprehensive tool designed to establish a basic understanding of the role of each member of the plant leadership team, played a significant role in this shift. All 28 plants at the author's last employer set the baseline and improvement targets for the new year using the MEA.
The MEA, which includes four stages of manufacturing excellence to track improvements, was instrumental in enabling plants to share improvement projects and get to know each other better. It also highlighted the need for senior leaders to undergo training to understand their roles in the development process.
However, the journey towards CI maturity was not without challenges. For plants not improving effectively, help was provided by the three VPs of manufacturing and members of the VP of quality's technical and Lean/6Sigma green and black Belts.
The author, Wickham Skinner, emphasises the importance of people and systems in achieving superior performance. He quotes, "Even if you are on the right track...if you sit still....you'll get run over." This underscores the need for dynamic, data-driven decision-making and continuous organisational learning.
To ensure success, the culture change necessary for CI was prioritised. Leaders needed to have high expectations for their plants, and projects should be prioritised based on their impact on the bottom line. Quarterly visits were made for plants not showing significant improvement, and a shake-up in leadership, starting with the plant manager, was often the result.
The approach is shifting from "driving" people to develop skills to communicating the need for leaders to be aligned with the agenda and engaged in developing successful processes. A robust MEA audit for plants in Stages 3 or 4 was a great way for them to be nominated to compete in the Best Plants in North America competition.
It's worth noting that a bottom-up initiative could potentially implode due to a lack of understanding and support from senior leadership. Therefore, a plan is being developed, including a checklist of initial actions such as training all leadership and assessing the skills present in quality and engineering.
In conclusion, while an annual corporate check-up can provide a summary snapshot of progress, it is not an effective primary method for tracking CI maturity progress compared to regular feedback, real-time metrics, and continuous improvement mechanisms. The best practice is to combine periodic formal assessments with ongoing monitoring and feedback loops for continuous organisational learning and process optimization.
- Within the business industry, a continuous improvement (CI) approach, characterized by ongoing, data-driven, and proactive process improvement, has become a powerful tool for driving growth and success, departing from traditional annual corporate check-ups.
- The Manufacturing Excellence Audit (MEA), a comprehensive tool for establishing a basic understanding of each plant leadership team member's role, was instrumental in enabling plants to share improvement projects and fostering better relationships among them.
- To ensure success in the pursuit of CI maturity, senior leaders were found to require training to understand their roles in the development process, with a priority given to instilling a culture change centered around high expectations and data-driven decision-making.
- In the context of education and self-development, career development, and skills training, adopting a CI approach underscores the importance of understanding the need for leaders to be aligned with the agenda, engaged in developing successful processes to promote continuous organisational learning.
