Hello there, we're one day away for the last of this series. Saturday posts are a bit later, I usually have home projects. This subject isn't going to say kaizen, but that's what we're doing. Improvement has to be a cycle. So don't stop once you make it one way around. If you'd like to start at the first post, you can find it here.
Improve Every Process
Continuous improvement is a key function of leadership. I rambled on previously about you (leadership) making sure you do everything you can to help your employees perform. Every point discussed up to now is about ways to facilitate performance of your system. All the pieces of those efforts should be built into your improvement cycles.
Be a leader and find out what makes their workday suck. find the root cause and fix it. Find out why you have returns. Find out what your defect/scrap rate is, then find the root causes you can fix...and fix them.
Figure out if your processes make sense. If you're a new organization, at least write everything down. Once you have some documentation it gets easier to find best practices between your people and make those standards.
Metrics are important. Sometimes they are just noise. Taek some time and make your metrics work for you. If you can't either-indicate to your team things are going well or -understand where something is failing and needs attention from your KPIs, make them better.
Everything I've mentioned requires time. Rest assured the time you spend to improve means you get the time back later. You get employee time back if you reduce rework. You get their time back if you make the process easier to do. If you find out how to monitor without lots of inspections, you save their time. Make time to improve, it pays 10x.
Start. Somewhere. & Continuous Improvement
Start. Somewhere. is a continuous improvement structure. There are five parts: why, where, how, when, start! The entire system is simple and approachable. It is made for the brand new company without a lot of time yet they understand the value of efficiency and waste removal. It is for the established manufacturer who would like a tool to teach people on the front line a way to consider problems. It is for the experienced quality and operations professional to leverage simplicity of function to get improvement results. No matter who uses it, you can take the structure, plug it into a new problem, and find answers you need. Over and over.
If you'd like to figure out how Start. Somewhere. can help you, click the Start button up top. If you're impatient, stalk me on LinkedIn, I love meeting new people. If you know what you want to discuss, you can schedule a free consultation at the bottom of every page on this site. So, what are you waiting for?
