Pursuit of perfection

Saravanan
Saravanan
Sep 5, 2018 · 2 min read

Continuous improvement.. Keyword for Japan’s ability to create low-cost, quality products that helped them dominate key industries such as automobiles, telecommunications, and consumer electronics. Watching the miraculous turnaround, almost every major western company began to adapt Japanese methods and advocated for continuous improvement.

Recent evidence from Japan suggests that it may be time to question these tools and methods. Japan’s consumer electronics industry is facing defeat; automobile industry has been plagued by a series of embarrassing quality problems; Japan has lost market share to companies from South Korea and even to the US. Once known for its technological innovations, Japan’s competitive edge is being challenged in all industries.

Continuous improvement doesn’t have to be incompatible with disruptive innovation. But unless we think about continuous improvement in more subtle, nuanced, and creative ways, we may force companies to choose between the two. We can see that trend already. Early adapters like Motorola and GE have struggled in recent years to be innovation leaders. 3M, which invested heavily in continuous improvement, had to loosen in order to increase the flow of innovation. Xerox has decided to cut back on Lean Six Sigma program.

Variance is essential for innovation and growth. Continuous improvement encourages us to avoid it, though we should actually be promoting it if our organizations are to remain competitive. It’s important to inject discipline into product and service development, but not so much that it discourages creativity.

In the world of globalization and growing cut-throat market environment just tools and analysis may not be the answer for implementing robust solutions to business problems. The best solution should equally focus on people and process, balance change management with analytics, and build a new set of team dynamics enabling innovation without disrupting improvement.

#GuruQuestions

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Saravanan

I never learn anything talking; I only learn things when I ask questions. #GuruQuestions

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