Continuous Improvement
Company-wide CI is the goal but how do we achieve it? How can we get everyone involved in the business of improving the business? Or is it just an impossible dream destined to remain in the textbooks...
For my latest attempt at CI I'm considering launching a 'reverse psychology' suggestion scheme <_< . I'll explain, rather than asking employees for suggestions to improve their area, which in my experience isn't so productive - we ask employees to vent their frustrations. We all have problems that we work with and around every day caused by equipment, working methods etc.
We are going to make a giant papier-mâché frustration box, it will be a man with a very angry face and operators can post their frustration slips into his mouth. The slips would be collated daily and action taken quickly - whether yes or no. We will have a big chart on the wall with the columns:
- Frustration
- Submitted by (can be anonymous)
- Date submitted
- Decision
- Action taken
- Comments
- Date completed
We may even have an anger barometer that empties the more frustrations we remove. Obviously there would have to be clear guidelines e.g. frustrations cannot be about people, pay or promotion etc., we may even put a maximum spend value on it.
Do you think this could work or am I totally crazy? :) - Please cast your vote in the poll and add your comments!
Also if you have an innovative continuous improvement programme in place in your organisation let us know how it works, what you have achieved and the challenges you faced and overcame. Alternatively tell us about your spectacular failures - we've all had them!
Simon
What about Upper Management committment and awareness ? We all know that a wrong decision may result in deleting in a few minutes many years of our efforts.Obviously there would have to be clear guidelines e.g. frustrations cannot be about people, pay or promotion etc., we may even put a maximum spend value on it.
Do you think this could work or am I totally crazy? :) - Please cast your vote in the poll and add your comments!
Also if you have an innovative continuous improvement programme in place in your organisation let us know how it works, what you have achieved and the challenges you faced and overcame. Alternatively tell us about your spectacular failures - we've all had them!
Simon
And We also know that many frustrations come from UM decisions.
IMHO, it can work well if there's a positive attitude towards quality and there's a constructive, democratic spirit in the Company. Also following up should be speed and clear-stated and care should be taken in order to compare different opinions of different employees and being equal.
We failed in employees involvement because We asked them what should We do to improve.
I think it would have been better if We had asked them to vent their frustrations, just as You're proposing.
It seemed to me that people loved to speak about failures and bad working stuff rather than success and efficient processes. :)
Your right, upper management support is critical to the success of the initiative and I have submitted the idea to the big boss. He thinks it is a 'great' idea in principal, but he needs to discuss it with his buddies. I won't go ahead without their support and an agreement with them to put some 'money where their mouths are.'
The project does need a lot of thinking about and planning and should consider your points on speed, fairness and comparing different ideas on similar themes.
Like you I think that by asking for employees' frustrations could make it a winner, after all we all love to moan and whinge.
It could even help to transform the culture of the organisation as the employees who are usually thought of as being negative will be viewed as the new champions of continuous improvement - either that or it will stop their moaning!
If we do go ahead it will be a very interesting experiment to see both how it is received by the employees and the improvements that are generated.
If it is very successful I'll think of a Japanese sounding word for the methodology (Fruzgan), write a book about it and retire to the Bahamas.
Simon
Attached Files
Please Simon, forward a signed copy of the book to me.Wahey! You don't think I'm crazy - not on this one anyway. Thanks for your input Franco.
Your right, upper management support is critical to the success of the initiative and I have submitted the idea to the big boss. He thinks it is a 'great' idea in principal, but he needs to discuss it with his buddies. I won't go ahead without their support and an agreement with them to put some 'money where their mouths are.'
The project does need a lot of thinking about and planning and should consider your points on speed, fairness and comparing different ideas on similar themes.
Like you I think that by asking for employees' frustrations could make it a winner, after all we all love to moan and whinge.
It could even help to transform the culture of the organisation as the employees who are usually thought of as being negative will be viewed as the new champions of continuous improvement - either that or it will stop their moaning!
If we do go ahead it will be a very interesting experiment to see both how it is received by the employees and the improvements that are generated.
If it is very successful I'll think of a Japanese sounding word for the methodology (Fruzgan), write a book about it and retire to the Bahamas.
Simon
I'll keep it in a safe place and reach You ASAP at Bahamas. :D