The Philosophy for Improvement
It is important to consider several key rules when driving continuous improvement activity.

	Does the activity support the profitability of the business?
	Does the activity support the need to satisfy the customers of your business?
	Does the activity involve everyone in the improvement process or are you working in isolation?
	Have you cascaded the knowledge to enable people to help themselves improve?

If not, why not?

The PDCA Cycle
The Plan, Do, Check, Act cycle is a continual process which aims to narrow the gap between current performance and customer expectation

	PLAN Where are we now? What are we aiming to do? What is our target? What should be the interaction of man , machine, material & method?
ACT Make the countermeasure permanent and cascade it. If trial unsuccessful, identify next countermeasure .		DO Try it out on a small scale to test the plan
	CHECK Did we achieve the expected target? If so what was the benefit? If not, why not?

The Building Blocks

5C / 5S Workplace Organisation
	The workplace needs to be robust and stable to ensure that a process can be carried out safely and repeatedly to enable the achievement of the required Quality, Cost and Delivery performance.
	The 5Cs are a five step technique to stabilise, maintain and improve the workplace.

7 Wastes
	The 7 Wastes aim to identify and implement the best current method of safely combining process inputs in order to achieve Quality, Cost and Delivery every time.
	In order to achieve the safest and best method, waste has to be identified and eliminated.

Standardised Work
	Standardised work aims to achieve customer satisfaction every time through effective management of workplace methods.
	Standardised work defines the best method of safely combining process inputs in order to achieve Quality, Cost and Delivery every time.

Visual Management
	Visual Management aims to visually communicate at all levels quickly and simply to enable the achievement of customer satisfaction every time in terms of Quality, Cost and Delivery.
	Good visual management requires no interpretation, it provokes a reaction!

The Supporting Tools

Data Analysis
	In order for the shop floor to take ownership of the Quality, Cost and Delivery data, it is essential to display the information in a manner which is simple and easy to read and understand
	The data analysis tool ensures that a company implements the correct data displays which will enable everyone in the company to buy into the data performance and become involved in its improvement.

Problem Solving
	Whenever there is a gap between current performance and the ideal performance then a problem exists.
	Many companies fall into the trap of treating the effect of a problem, this is ‘firefighting’ and although it may contain the problem will not eliminate it.
	The key to solving a problem is to find the ROOT CAUSE, eliminate it and prevent reoccurrence.
	Problem Solving uses simple and effective techniques to ensure that problems can be solved at all levels within a business.

Set Up Improvement
	It is often necessary to change a process from manufacturing one type of product to another resulting in non productive time. This may cause capacity problems and tends to lead to large inflexible batch manufacture.
	By reducing the amount of time taken to set up a machine, it may be possible to reduce the batch size, allowing more set up operations to be made without incurring more non-productive time. This allows lower inventory levels to be maintained, and customer lead times to be reduced.
	Alternatively reducing the amount of time to set up a machine will free up capacity on the machine allowing additional production without additional cost.