The principle of continuous improvement in manufacturing was first introduced in the 1950’s, by an American statistician and management consultant named W. Edwards Deming. Deming’s belief was the elegantly simple concept that quality should be continuously improved through small, incremental changes.
Deming was also an advocate for the use of statistical process control (SPC) to “identify and eliminate sources of variation in the production process.”
While continuous improvement–also known as continuous process improvement–has evolved over the decades, especially with the introduction of lean manufacturing and Six Sigma manufacturing, this core principle has remained the same.
Continuous improvement is a methodology and a cultural mindset that embraces the concept that no change is too small, and every improvement matters. This contrasts with large, often capital-intensive system overhauls.
While your organization must understand what you aim to achieve when implementing continuous improvement, as a methodology, it has several goals–many of which can be achieved at the same time. These include:
- Minimize waste
- Optimize efficiency
- Improve product quality
- Improve customer satisfaction and loyalty by creating more value
- Improve profitability
- Lowering operating costs
- Standardizing processes and improving process ownership and accountability
- Building a culture of excellence, continuous improvement, and a growth mindset
- Improving workplace safety
Over time, it also creates an organization that is more resilient and adaptive to change, from external challenges to evolving customer demands.
For continuous improvement to be successful, you must combine its cornerstones:
- Communication and culture,
- Process focus,
- Production data and measurement,
- Customer focus,
- And a clear structure to keep you on track.
Ahead, we’ll explain these key principles and how, when they work together, they deliver real, measurable gains for manufacturers.
Communication and culture are vital to continuous improvement
As a principle, continuous improvement can be empowering to every team member in the company–yet people are also often resistant to change, even when it's small.
This is where communication, change management, and culture setting come in.
Part of managing change in culture is communicating exactly what continuous improvement is, how it benefits employees and the company, and how it will impact their day-to-day jobs. These benefits include smaller, easier changes, as continuous improvement emphasizes small changes, making them less disruptive and easier to implement, manage and track. Continuous improvement also gives each employee the ability to impact company goals and culture. Every improvement makes a difference–meaning, every employee can make a difference.
To get started, consider holding regular brainstorming sessions where employees can share their ideas and insights for improvements. Measure progress, analyze performance, and celebrate wins–so employees see even small successes embraced and start to feel a bigger sense of ownership in their jobs. This in turn helps develop a culture of excellence, as well as more engaged teams.
Continuous improvement focuses on processes–not targeting people
A crucial piece to continuous improvement is that it is focused on improving processes and systems, not on singling out employees for mistakes or placing blame on individuals for inefficiencies or waste.
Instead, to implement this methodology effectively, decide what your business goals are. Then, analyze your existing workflows and processes thoroughly. Look at where bottlenecks, downtime, and other inefficiencies are happening. Encourage team problem-solving, with relevant employees. Then, assign tasks with deadlines and hold people accountable–but never place blame. Instead, emphasize and demonstrate a growth mindset by tracking progress, unpacking learnings, and trialing new approaches as a team until you’re able to resolve the issue.
Production data is another crucial cornerstone
To get a clear, objective picture of where your issues are happening and what their root causes are, you need access to your production data. Without it, what commonly happens is disagreements and competing hypotheses, which too often result in inaction.
It’s why production data is like peanut butter to the jelly of continuous improvement. Real-time data helps you understand where you’re losing efficiency or inadvertently creating waste, make systematic and incremental adjustments, and track and measure progress and results. This measurement is critical to the long-term success of continuous improvement, as it sustains the cycle and gives you a clear view of how the changes you’re implementing are making an impact.
On the shop floor, this data helps teams track production performance in real-time, catch delays and issues early, plan labor effectively, and engage teams in the progress and successes of their incremental improvements. For company leadership, pairing real-time data with the ability to trend it over time makes it possible to objectively decide on project priorities as well as to quantify their ROI.
Customer focus is key
Another result of implementing continuous improvement in manufacturing is increased product quality and customer satisfaction. This is in part due to a focus on process improvements that improve production and keep deliveries on target. It’s also due in part to the emphasis on a culture of excellence and growth that leads to better quality of work.
But another way to improve customer satisfaction is also to keep customers top of mind when it comes to improvement goals. By embracing incremental adaptations and improvements, you’re naturally building a more flexible, responsive manufacturing organization. Harness this to build customer loyalty by regularly seeking their feedback to better understand their evolving wants, needs, and expectations.
For example, you might develop quarterly customer surveys built with questions about understanding any issues or frustrations, along with desires and challenges they are looking to solve. As you prove you’re listening to them, you not only improve your product quality but also develop customer loyalty that will keep your company resilient.
Daily Management Systems (DMS) keep continuous improvement on track
To keep your teams on track with problem-solving and improvement implementation, you need a structure. This is where a Daily Management System (DMS) comes in.
A DMS is a system of daily actions that keeps your teams focused on making changes and tracking how they work. While the data you get from your production monitoring gives you insights into issues and opportunities for improvement, a DMS helps ensure you’re continuously acting on those. It also introduces standardization–not only for the KPIs that are being measured but also for the topics teams are addressing in your daily meetings. This ensures the discussions stay on track and you don’t lose focus on priorities before meeting times run out, or simply get distracted.
Components of a DMS include checks to ensure you’re on track to meet your goals, what corrective action is being taken, who is accountable for it, and if past actions and improvements are being sustained. The standardized structure of a DMS ensures organizational alignment. Like a scientific process, it prompts teams to check the initial hypothesis and plan against the actual actions. This way, you are actively problem-solving as you work through the issues, and continuously coaching and developing employees through the work.
Establishing and sticking to a DMS also helps keep your teams focused on the data that’s relevant to your organizational goals and priorities–rather than getting overwhelmed by the sheer volume of data you have access to.
Key takeaways
At its core, continuous improvement in manufacturing is simple: rather than try to execute dramatic overhauls to systems, based on theories about root causes, dramatic change and results can be achieved through small, incremental changes grounded in objective data.
But to be effective, it requires building an engaged culture that embraces continuous improvement and a growth mindset–and the concept that their ideas, no matter how small, matter. It also requires a focus on methodical process analysis and improvement, on customers and their feedback, on precise, objective measurement through production monitoring, and the use of a Daily Management System to create structure around the mindset and sustain the cycle of improvements.
If you’re wondering where to get started, check out our blog How to Leverage Data to Jumpstart Continuous Manufacturing Process Improvement for a clear list of steps.
