This document discusses continuous process improvement strategies. It describes 5 ways to improve a process including reducing inputs, reducing errors, meeting or exceeding customer expectations, making the process safer, and making it more satisfying for employees. Improvement strategies include repairing issues, refining incremental improvements, renovating with breakthrough improvements, and reinventing with new outputs. The 7-step problem solving method is outlined as identifying opportunities, analyzing the current process, developing optimal solutions, implementing changes, studying results, standardizing solutions, and planning for the future. Kaizen is also discussed as a philosophy of continuous improvement through small increments.

1. 5-Continuous Process
Improvement
REFERENCE
Total Quality Management by Besterfield et al

2. Process
 Interaction of some combination of
people, materials, equipment, method to
produce an outcome.
FEEDBACK
INPUT PROCESS
Materials People OUTPUT
Money Equipment Product OUTCOMES
Information Environme Service
Data nt Information
Method
Materials

3. Improvement
 5 Ways to Improve
1. Reduce resource input
2. Reduce errors
3. Meet or exceed expectations of
customers
4. Make the process Safer
5. Make the process more satisfying for
the people doing it

4. Improvement Strategies:
Repair
 Anything Broken must be fixed
 Two levels of application
1. If a customer receives damaged
product: FIX IT (Temporary solution)
2. Eliminate the root cause of the
problem (long term solution)

5. Improvement Strategies:
Refine
 Continually improve the process that
is not broken
 Incremental improvements in
products, processes, services
 A strategy for both individuals & teams
 Doing things just a bit quicker, better,
easier or with less waste
 Benefit: Little resistance from
employees
 Drawback: Gradual change might not
be recognized or rewarded by

6. Improvement Strategies:
Renovate
 Major break through improvements
 Output may appear to be the same
 Innovation & technology
advancements are key factors in this
approach
 More expensive

7. Improvement Strategies:
Reinvent
 Most demanding strategy
 Thinking process: Current approach
will never satisfy customer
requirements
 A new output (product, service or
activity) might be developed
 Start with the imagination that
previous system does not exist
 Benefit: Potential competitive
advantage

8. Types of Problems
 Compliance (Specified by standards)
 Unstructured (Not specified by
standards)
 Efficiency (from operations viewpoint)
 Process Design
 Product Design

10. Problem Solving Method
1. Identify an Opportunity
2. Analyze the process
3. Develop optimal solution
4. Implement
5. Study the results
6. Standardize solution
7. Plan for future

11. 1- Identify the Opportunity
 Pareto Analysis of external signals
(field failures, complaints, returns etc)
 Pareto Analysis of internal alarms
(scrap, rework, sorting and 100% test)
 Key Insiders (Managers, supervisors,
workers etc)
 Suggestion schemes
 Data on performance of competitors
 Comments of key people outside
organization (Customers, suppliers etc)

12. 1- Identify the Opportunity Cont..
 Quality Counsel or work group
prioritize problems on three criteria
1. Is problem important & not
superficial?
2. Will problem solution contribute to
the attainment of goals?
3. Can problem be defined clearly using
objective measures
 Failures normally caused by poor
definition of problems

13. 1- Identify the Opportunity:
Charter for Problem solving
Team
 Authority
 Objective & Scope (expected
outputs, specific areas to improve)
 Composition (team members and
sub-process owners)
 Direction & Control (Guide lines for
internal operations of team)
 General (methods to be used)

14. 2- Analyze the current
Process
 Understand the current performance
 Define inputs, outputs, suppliers,
process flow & Determine the current
level of customer satisfaction
 Define target performance measures
w.r.t to customer requirements
 Define data required to manage the

15. 2- Analyze the current Process:
Data Requirements
 Customer info (complaints, surveys
etc)
 Design info
(specifications, drawings, function, bill
s of materials, maintainability)
 Process info (routing, equipment, raw
material, component parts etc)
 Quality info (Pareto diagram, cause &
effect diagram, control charts etc)
 Supplier info ( Such as process

16. 3- Develop optimal Solutions
 Search the best solution after
considering all available information
 Creativity plays an important role in
1. Creating new process
2. Combining different processes OR
3. Modifying the existing process
 Possible change areas: Bottle
necks, delays, equipment, timing, # of
inspections, rework, cycle
time, inventory levels etc

17. 4- Implement Changes
 Implementation plan should describe
 Why will it be done?
 How will it be done?
 When will it be done?
 Who will do it?
 Where will it be done?
 Also the critical info and details about
measurement of information

18. 5- Study the results
 Track the effectiveness of the
improvement
 Important to Institutionalize meaningful
change
 Ensure ongoing measurement &
evaluation efforts to achieve continuous
improvement
 Project team should meet periodically
during this phase to evaluate the results
 Some phases to be repeated if team is

19. 6- Standardize the solution
 Positive control specifies variables
that need to be kept under control
 What, who, how, where and when of
the process
 Standardizing the solution prevents
backsliding

20. 7- Plan for the Future
 Improvement process continues
 TQM addresses the Quality of
management as well as Management
of Quality
 Every one in the organization is
involved in long term endeavor of
continuous improvement

21. KAIZEN
 Japanese philosophy that defines role
of management in continuous
improvement
 Process of continuous improvement in
small increments that make process
more efficient, effective, under control
and adaptable
 Accomplished with little or no expense
and without using sophisticated
techniques or expensive equipment.