Five Keys to Continuous Improvement (eBook)

Unlock the Potential in Your Organization

McNeil David (Autor)

eBook Download: EPUB

2024 | 1. Auflage
289 Seiten
Publishdrive (Verlag)
978-1-7364053-6-9 (ISBN)

Infos

This book is tailored for the countless individuals entrusted with driving improvement initiatives within their businesses or organizations. This diverse group includes leaders spanning from CEOs to front-line employees. Their responsibilities include a wide spectrum, from formulating and executing strategic plans to seizing incremental improvement opportunities.

Within these pages, you will uncover the essential elements necessary for effectively implementing and sustaining improvement efforts across any organizational context. The authors distill years of experience, research, and analysis into five key concepts. These Five Keys empower practitioners to lead with confidence, bridging the gap between common sense and practical application.

Textauszug

Continuous Improvement

“Continuous improvement is not about the things you do well — that’s work. Continuous improvement is about removing the things that get in the way of your work. The headaches, the things that slow you down, that’s what continuous improvement is all about.”

 Bruce Hamilton, Director Emeritus Shingo Institute

The Evolution of Process Improvement

The concept of implementing improvements has always been an instinctive factor in human nature and part of our human story since the cavemen. It is common sense to find ways to make work easier and improvements sustainable.

In the chart above, you can see “game-changers” in the evolution of process improvement dating back to the 18th century. These “breakthroughs” occurred rarely, yet dramatically reshaped the industries where they originated. But it was in the post-World War II era that the notion of “continuous improvement” began to enter the mainstream lexicon and migrated from inventors and theorists to a more mainstream audience involving workers on the front lines.

Continuous Improvement Gains Traction

Continuous Improvement (CI) or Continual Improvement Processes (CIP) accelerated markedly in Japan after World War II. Japanese industries were decimated during the war and the United States provided experts to assist with the rebuild. One of several experts, sent by the U.S., was Dr. W. Edwards Deming an American statistician, originally sent to Japan to assist with census work. During the World War II, Deming was a member of the Emergency Technical Committee, a group charged with developing statistical methods for quality control of materials and products, and taught Statistical Process Control (SPC) to manufacturers engaged in the United States’ war materials production. Based on his wartime experience of improving quality and reducing waste, he was recruited to assist the Japanese in their manufacturing rebuilding efforts.

Deming introduced Japanese industrial leaders to his brand of statistical process control, quality control, and the “Shewhart Cycle” which evolved into the Plan-Do-Study-Act process. Deming, was certainly not the sole inspiration in helping the Japanese rebuild their industries; however, Deming was unrelenting in his focus on improving quality, eliminating waste, and weeding out non-value-added steps in the manufacturing process. He urged companies to focus on streamlining their processes by engaging their frontline workers in these improvement efforts. The approach was known in Japan as “kaizen,” translated literally as “improvement.” 

During the 1950s, Japanese products had a global reputation for low costs and poor quality, and were derided by many Westerners as “junk.” But in order for Japan to ever recover economically as a nation, their leaders knew that their success was directly tied to their ability to export. And, in order to export successfully, they knew their products must reflect high quality and be produced cost-effectively.

Let the Good Times Roll

While Japan was in the midst of its industrial revolution, American industry paid little attention — and for good reasons. During the war and thereafter, America became a manufacturing juggernaut. Throughout the war, mass production methods had been fine-tuned, and as the war ended, American consumers were hungry for new everything. Between 1945 and 1949, Americans purchased 20 million refrigerators, 21.4 million cars and 5.5 million stoves. In the 1950s, televisions and auto sales skyrocketed.1

Practically every item that American industry built would be sold, and ravenous consumer spending would continue during the 1950s and 60s. Due to the lack of rivals to American industry, manufacturers were not interested in process improvement or quality controls, and opted instead for greater output.

Quality and cost were non- issues: American industries could sell anything they produced and increased production costs would be passed directly on to insatiable consumers. In this environment, it was not surprising that American industry was not seeking improvements and instead followed the approach of “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.”

Conversely, throughout the 1960s and 1970s, Japanese manufacturers distinguished themselves in the production of high-quality textiles, consumer electronics, cameras, watches, appliances, and automobiles. Products from Japan, once considered “cheap” or of “poor quality,” had now become market leaders.

Sony and Panasonic began to dominate the electronics industry, while Toyota and Honda were manufacturing and exporting high-quality, smaller fuel-efficient vehicles. From the ashes of the war, Japan had been rebuilt and become the world’s second largest economy, second only to the US, from 1968-2010.2

The Oil Crises of 1973 & 1979

The 1973 oil crisis began in October 1973 when the members of the Organization of Arab Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) proclaimed an oil embargo. The embargo was targeted at nations perceived to be supporting Israel during the Yom Kippur War. The nations initially targeted were Canada, Japan, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom and the United States, later extended to Portugal, Rhodesia and South Africa.

By the end of the embargo in March 1974, the price of oil had risen nearly 400%, from US $3 per barrel to nearly $12 globally; US prices were significantly higher. The embargo caused an oil crisis, or “shock,” with many short- and long-term effects on global politics and the global economy.3

This “first oil shock” was followed by a second. In 1979 a decrease in oil output occurred in the wake of the Iranian revolution. Although supplies only decreased by 4%, widespread panic resulted causing crude oil prices to spike at nearly $40 dollars a barrel. Then in 1980, the outbreak of war between Iran and Iraq resulted in severe production shortages triggering recessions in the United States and other countries. Oil prices did not subside to pre-crisis levels until the mid-1980s.4 

Global Paradigm Shift

These “oil shocks” appeared to trigger a paradigm shift throughout the world and especially in America, Western Europe, and Canada. No longer was cheap fuel a given, and as a result, consumer tastes began to forever change. Car buyers now demanded fuel efficiency and higher quality. For North American auto and steel producers specializing in the high-volume production of large, fuel thirsty vehicles, this change represented a cataclysmic shift in demand.

While tumultuous shifts in manufacturing and technology had occurred in the past (i.e., textiles, electronics, apparel mills, mining), it seems that this upending of US auto and steel industries, considered the bellwether of American manufacturing, signaled a tipping point extending far beyond these two industries.

Before long, other commercial sectors began experiencing similar customer demands for higher quality and lower prices. As trade barriers fell away, increased competition from around the world forced businesses in a variety of commercial sectors to reinvent how products would be designed and manufactured.

Consumers had awakened to new brands and marketplaces. Enter the advent of Global Competition.

The New Reality

During the ensuing decades, global competitive pressures on businesses and industries to continually improve increased steadily. As technology, process, design, and services became easily transportable, unlikely competitors continued to sprout.

Some businesses found they were no longer anchored in their country of origin, and began relocating to take advantage of low wages, the absence of labor and environmental regulations, and overall cheaper production costs outside the US. Companies of all types now took careful note of their global competition.

And throughout the world, many businesses wisely invested in revitalizing their manufacturing facilities while introducing Japanese inspired “lean” work practices to their worksites

So, it is here that we find ourselves today in an unrelenting contest to produce quality goods and services faster and more cost-effectively than our competitors. It is here that continuous improvement is invaluable.

Continuous Improvement Becomes a Way
of Life

Given the ever-changing dynamics of global competition, today’s business leaders should feel no less desperate nor committed than those leaders in Japan...

Produkt-Details

• Erscheint lt. Verlag: 5.4.2024
• Reihe/Serie: The Five Keys to Continuous Improvement - Second Edition
• Sprache: englisch
• Themenwelt: Naturwissenschaften ► Biologie ► Ökologie / Naturschutz
• Themenwelt: Wirtschaft ► Betriebswirtschaft / Management ► Unternehmensführung / Management
• Themenwelt: Wirtschaft ► Volkswirtschaftslehre
• Schlagworte: Business Strategy - Sustainability • Change Management • Continuous Improvement - Kaizen • Culture Change - Intentional Culture • Employee engagement • Leading Change - Leadership Development • Operational Excellence
• ISBN-10: 1-7364053-6-5 / 1736405365
• ISBN-13: 978-1-7364053-6-9 / 9781736405369