Continual Improvement Process, also often called a continuous improvement process (abbreviated
as CIP or CI), is an ongoing effort to improve
products, services, or processes. These efforts can seek
"incremental" improvement over time or "breakthrough"
improvement all at once. Delivery (customer valued) processes are constantly
evaluated and improved in the light of their efficiency, effectiveness and
flexibility.
In Japanese continuous improvement
is known as Kaizen. Kaizen (改善) comes from two Japanese words: Kai
(improvement) and Zen (good), which translates to “continuous improvement”. In business,
Kaizen refers to activities that continuously improve all functions and involve
all employees from the CEO to the assembly line workers. Kaizen’s strength
comes from having all workers participate and make suggestions to improve the
business. The purpose of Kaizen goes beyond simple productivity improvement.
When done correctly, the process humanizes the workplace, eliminates overly
hard work, and teaches people how to spot and eliminate waste in business
processes.
Steps in continuous improvement process:
The following picture shows the steps involved in continuous
improvement process
- ü Identify
In this process
the opportunity for improvement are listed can be done using SWOT analysis
technique ,group discussion technique, meeting board (Panaboard meeting)technique
in which all ideas includes value added ideas and non value added ideas are
listed down
- ü
Plan
In this
process all value added activities which need improvement and it matches
a current state of a process plan are listed down. plan should include the date
and time with list of action need to be done and the members of a team
- ü
Execute
In this activities
need to be performed with the support of respective team members and it should
be performed on the scheduled date. This phrase of process improvements need a
strong team support and coordination if something is missed out the output of
process will fail
- ü
Review
Once
the change is implemented it need to be reviewed by the team head, whether
this improvement as gain any value to the organization or not, whether we
proceed this change by implementing them in long term
Kaizen sheet template
The below picture show the format or template for continuous
improvements activities
Kaizen sheet example:
The below
picture show the example for continuous
improvements activities
Continuous improvement vs Continual improvement
Continual improvement means that the approach is repeated
and has pauses in between repetitions. A continual approach will have a phased
system, whereby improvements will be made then there will be a brake to measure
and analyses the success, after this further improvements can be made. Whereas
a continuous improvement approach does not stop, it is an uninterrupted flow. A
continuous approach is one that will constantly look to make improvements, it
is a sustained process of development. One
of the most common approaches of continuous improvement is Lean. This approach
aims to embed a culture of continuous improvement (Kaizen culture) which uses a
set of tools and techniques to reduce waste and maximize customer value.
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