Tag: continuous Improvement

Originating from the Japanese term “Gembutsu,” “Gemba Walk” is essentially a lean management practice that has an organization’s leadership visiting the “actual place” where work is done. This might be a factory or an office, but the goal is to give company leadership an inside view of how things are going, as well as enabling […]

Even the most well-conceived strategies can fall short without proper execution. Across many industries, leaders spend months or years crafting bold plans, only to see those fade away in the face of daily operations. Why does this happen? There is a persistent execution gap, where organizational strategy fails to connect with the activities that drive […]

Just because you’ve got a slew of customer complaints doesn’t mean things are hopeless. Obviously, something needs to change in how you’re conducting daily operations. You can take gradual steps toward operational excellence, however. You might already be sticking to methodologies like Lean and Six Sigma, but you just need the right sort […]

How do you keep pace with the rising threat of vulnerabilities in your tech infrastructure? Cybersecurity is still a top concern in businesses around the world, something that is only going to grow in prevalence in the coming years. That said, there isn’t much in place for continually improving your processes when it […]

Whenever we think about how much organizations spend every year on process improvement, it’s a whole lot of money. The efforts to improve engagement, business results, and employee performance can certainly lead to rewards, or they can lead to wasted spending. The hope is that every company’s good intentions pay off, but far […]

Keypoints Any time an organization looks to make changes using process improvement methodologies, it often meets heavy internal resistance from the “doers.” These individuals are responsible for instituting many of the internal changes, and unsurprisingly, as there is fear of the unknown, change is rarely easy.  This is an unfortunate but true reality, and it […]

How do you get everyone on board with a continuous improvement effort? A prominent peanut butter manufacturer was facing a growing problem: customer complaints about inconsistent product color. Variations in the shade of peanut butter on grocery store shelves led to perceptions that some jars were fresher than others. As a result, customers avoided purchasing […]

TQM is a management approach that originated in the 1950s and has steadily become more popular since the early 1980s. Total Quality is a description of the culture, attitude, and organization of a company that strives to provide customers with products and services that satisfy their needs. The culture requires quality in all aspects of […]

A competitive and successful business needs to critically evaluate all the opportunities for improvement and deploy valuable resources strategically. By identifying low-hanging fruit, high-impact, low-effort activities can be addressed creating a solid foundation for continuous improvement.

As artificial intelligence (AI) continues to reshape industries, organizations are increasingly integrating AI-driven solutions into their continuous improvement programs. AI has the potential to revolutionize these programs by automating repetitive tasks, uncovering patterns in data, and offering predictive insights that can accelerate decision-making. However, AI’s implementation introduces new considerations for businesses aiming to […]

The Harada method helps individuals achieve self-reliance which in turn facilitates a company’s process improvement journey. Part One provides an overview of the method and its genesis. Subsequently, part Two presents five templates to use to plan a goal, measure the goal’s progress, and assess success. An example helps illustrate their practical use. As described […]

Isn’t it amazing how there’s “the next big thing” everyday? Headlines from blogs, sales websites, newspapers, even Twitter and LinkedIn, carry this headline continuously. How many of these “things” really are new? Years ago when I started my continuous improvement journey, I read about Deming and Juran. Quality Circles and SPC were big. Then Total […]

“Before cars, make people.” – Eiji Toyoda, former chairman of Toyota. Jidoka is one of the core principles of the Toyota Production System, one that empowers production workers to stop the assembly line and solve problems at the moment they occur. Jidoka integrates the two guiding pillars of the Toyota Way, “Continuous Improvement” and “Respect […]

In these difficult economic times it is vital now more than ever that organizational leadership understand and implement the best defense against all types of waste. Value added analysis and percentage increases to the overall value added activity must be among the top measurements for all employees. Non-value activities need to be reduced and cultural […]

Let’s start off by defining Lean manufacturing. Lean (as described on multiple on-line resources) is described as a production practice that focuses on the elimination of wasteful elements in all process to increase the value to the customer. Sounds great! What organization wouldn’t want to implement a program to eliminate waste? The problem is that […]

Union Pacific has named D. Lynn Kelley, Ph.D., vice president in charge of continuous improvement, effective July 1. She succeeds Richard R. McClish, who is retiring, and will report to Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Jim Young.

Many times in our industry, organizational leaders spout that they desire and believe in continuous improvement. They use the latest buzzwords and seem very serious when they communicate the new direction that they want to take. I don’t know if CI is truly understood by many organizational leaders due to the fact that most of […]

Finch Paper, based in Glen Falls, N.Y., USA, has named Black Belt Ken Chartier as its new director, quality and continuous improvement.

In a recent study of 100 senior manufacturing staff, British magazine Works Management (WM) found that the largest barrier to the adoption of continuous improvement (CI) programs is lack of cooperation from their staff.

Macy’s, CVS and Best Buy. Oh my! Those were just three of the companies that shared their stories of process improvement success during the afternoon session on Day 2 (Tuesday, March 29) of the iSixSigma Retail Forum for Process Excellence. The conference is being held through Thursday, March 31, at the Westin Edina Galleria in […]

Stealth Components, a distributor of electronics equipment, has added Andrée Kiser to its team as director of operations and quality control.

Lauren Manufacturing, a supplier of extruded and molded sealing products, has announced the promotion of Halle A. Norris from plant manager to vice president of manufacturing.

Delta Faucet Co. has promoted its continuous improvement (CI) manager Todd Shadburn to the position of senior CI engineer.

Remcon Plastics Inc. has hired Master Black Belt and Lean sensei Benjamin F. Wittich to run the rotational molding firm’s continuous improvement program.