Continuous Improvement in Manufacturing: What You Should Know

In this article:

• What is Continuous Improvement?
• 4 Benefits of Continuous Improvement
• 2 Risks associated with Continuous Improvement

The strategy of Continuous Improvement (also widely referred to as Kaizen), has become an important tool for reducing costs and keeping pace with the changing business environment. In Poland, for example, this topic is often discussed by keynote speakers and business leaders on manufacturing excellence summits and conferences.

The main reason for this is that Kaizen is a proven method to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of manufacturing processes and even employee well-being and job satisfaction. However, many business decision makers and production managers often doubt the effectiveness of Continuous Improvement, citing the complexity of the strategy as the main barrier to adoption.

So, does Continuous Improvement really work? Can it help to reduce costs and increase the efficiency and effectiveness of manufacturing?

We’ll answer these questions in this article using the experience of other companies.

Continuous Improvement: a Quick Introduction

If you’re reading this article, chances are that you’re familiar with the concept of Continuous Improvement, so we’ll keep this section brief and move on to answering the abovementioned questions.

Continuous Improvement in manufacturing is a structured and participatory approach based on the idea that ongoing changes in processes can lead to major improvements.

The purpose of Continuous Improvement is to create a culture where employees involved in manufacturing are actively engaged with monitoring for inefficiencies and improving performance.

Role of Employees

In this strategy, a special emphasis is made on employee involvement. Since it’s assumed that those closest to the work process are best suited to provide improvement suggestions, and therefore, implement changes, employees have to be at the forefront of the continuous improvement strategy.

Role of Managers

At the same time, managers should also be active participants in the process of determining process-related problems and taking actions to support line employees during the implementation of Kaizen.

Continuous Improvement: Is It Worth Your Investment?

Before starting with Continuous Improvement programs, it is important to understand their advantages and disadvantages for businesses.

Let’s start with the advantages.

Continuous Improvement is more a strategy than a tool, so the implementation of programs often lasts months and even years. Under the strategy, all employees involved in a project become responsible for defining inefficiencies, delays, and other issues impacting the performance, as well as suggesting how to eliminate them.

The ultimate goals of any Continuous Improvement Program include better productivity, effectiveness, efficiency, safety, and waste reduction (read about the seven Lean wastes in this guide). If achieved, these goals can provide the following advantages to an organization:

· Less waste. The seven wastes of Lean — transportation, motion, waiting, overproduction, inventory, defects, overprocessing — are categories of unproductive manufacturing practices that result in more avoidable costs

· Higher employee satisfaction. Since managers encourage employees to take an active part in improving the business, the latter feel more accomplished, valued, and appreciated

· Increased competitiveness. Reduction of waste and increases in production efficiency and effectiveness contribute to higher quality of products, success in meeting customer deadlines, and more business

· Improved teamwork and problem-solving. Working together to solve manufacturing problems allows to build and strengthen existing teams.

Much focus of Continuous Improvement programs is on minimizing the seven wastes. Perhaps not surprisingly, as the vast majority of employees in manufacturing businesses cite waste as the most important problem that needed to be eliminated.

While the ultimate purpose of Continuous Improvement is to improve manufacturing processes, it is also important to understand that inappropriate implementation may not work in the best interest of a business.

Let’s consider these risks associated with Continuous Improvement.

· A lack of real improvement. Often, businesses achieve only insignificant progress that vanes with time because of the lack of training and understanding of how to implement Continuous Improvement. Also, the managers may not realize that real improvement comes from exploring an entirely different approach or abandoning outdated techniques everybody is used to applying

· Improper implementation. Often, businesses fail to implement Kaizen programs correctly — by failing to give employees real power or motivation to change processes, etc. — which leads to more problems than improvements, in addition to employee frustration.

Clearly, the benefits of Continuous Improvement outweigh the disadvantages, and the latter come from poor knowledge of the implementation.

If you’d like to know how a real-time tracking system can help your business with the implementation of Continuous Improvement, feel free to check out 5 Ways to Support Continuous Improvement (Kaizen) in Production with Real-Time Tracking on our blog.