January 20, 2016 Industry Forum Blog What is the best approach to improvement? Only a slightly simpler question than “What is the meaning of life, the universe and everything?” There are many well-known practitioners and writers publishing their findings and recommended approaches. And of course, a number of people branding their approaches as the ultimate solution. However, this week I read an article by a much admired leader in all things lean, Jim Womack, which made me stop and think. In his article, Jim describes how in the last year he has started advising clients to make changes in one single place in an organisation, as opposed to starting with the big picture and the end-to-end value stream. This enables the team to discover what things they need to address across the whole organisation to ensure they have a functioning and stable environment, that gives a solid foundation for sustainable improvement. This reminded me of the way in which I was taught to approach improvement by the Master Engineers from Nissan, Toyota and Honda. Work in small steps Always, always work in small steps towards your overall goal. There are two key reasons for this; If you apply a small improvement now, the savings will start straight away and build up over time. If you delay until you design a complete and perfect solution, the chances are you will lose focus and never implement any improvement at all. This is summed up in a quote attributed to Mark Twain; “Continuous improvement is better than delayed perfection.” It’s a bit like climbing a very large mountain. Rather than one long steady slope, there are a number of peaks to conquer along the way. And if you look ahead, you can see the nearest peaks, but not the highest. You have to keep on climbing to reach the summit. The summit, or your overall goal, is best represented by your vision or mission statement. Research shows that the most sustainable improvement activities are those whose targets are linked to achieving that goal. Your strategy is like the route you chose to the summit. It breaks down attainment of the goal into achievable segments. You then choose and deploy the tools that are best suited to achieving each segment. Top deployment tip When working on one of the segments and deploying a tool, break your actions down into even smaller steps and trial your ideas as you go. Always encourage your improvement team to try out an improvement idea immediately, and don’t spend money on it straight away. You can mock up the suggested countermeasure, or solution, using whatever materials you have to hand. Sticky tape, cardboard, spare pairs of hands and the ability to scrounge are your best friends here. Use cardboard cut outs of equipment to trial a new layout. Use people to act as stands or shelves. Borrow equipment from another area. Sketch out shadow boards or document layouts. The key is to trial the idea and check that it works before you make permanent changes and spend money. (Remember to use the Plan, Do, Check, Act cycle). Keep going Keep moving through the small steps to complete the segments of your overall plan. This allows you to see progress and build on your successes. I always use these 3 phrases to remind the improvement team to work in small achievable steps, no matter what technique is being deployed and what their end goal may be. Do it now! No excuses. Use your wisdom, not your money! Improvement is infinite, better is not good enough. Take a look at our Leadership Development Programme, which is a programme designed to manage the sustainability of all improvements made in the workplace. We have three courses in the programme: Team Leader Essentials (TLE) Manufacturing Manager Training (MMT) Senior Leadership Training (SLT) If you’d like to speak to one of our experts, drop us an email or call us on +44(0) 121 717 6600.
