‘CI’ Leads to ‘Business Survival and Business Growth’!
CI (Continuous Improvement) is a ‘Key Word’ for ‘Optimization’. CI is a ‘mindset’. It is a ‘learned behavior‘. An antonym, ‘Entropy’, is the gradual re-establishment of ‘chaos and randomness to work areas, events, and methods’. CI is a ‘hedge’ against ‘Entropy’ and is ‘insurance’ against a degradation of systems. CI has a foundation of maintaining current operations and is the ‘fuel’ that drives ‘Innovation, New Product Development, and Market Expansion’. Developing methods to sustain and improve operations is the ‘goal of CI’.
‘Key factors’ to build a ‘CI Culture’ Include:
1) Knowledge of Systems
2) Vested Interest in Improvement
3) Authority to Act
Business is complex, and CI requires ‘Knowledge of Systems’ to ‘see improvements’. The ‘CI pie’ can be split into functional areas of ‘Product and Feature Development’, ‘Manufacture and Service Delivery’, plus ‘Sales’. A ‘CI Focus’ on each of these areas can independently spur ‘significant gains’ in ‘value’ of the organization. (The real ‘result’ of CI!).
From a personnel view, ‘CI’ requires ‘Care’ which can be defined as a ‘Vested Interest in Improvement’. It is important to have ‘Organization CI Efforts’ that bring together ‘the team’ to focus on discovery and implementation of ‘CI opportunities’. Team efforts can discover production and service hindrances for improvement consideration.
CI Optimization requires understanding the ‘necessity and efficiency’ for delivery of ‘value to the customer’. One key metric, ‘Value Cycle Time’ (Revenue Generating Product or Service), must be ‘measured’, ‘discussed’ and ‘improved’. Team efforts can be directed at the discovery of methods and technologies to improve ‘efficiency and delivery’ of products and services. Use of ‘Lean Tools’ such as ‘Value Stream Map’, ‘Kaizen Sprint’ and ‘PDCA’ ‘DMAIC’ plus ‘In-House CI Systems’ lead to continual cycles of ‘improvement consideration’ and ‘optimization implementation’.
The third ‘CI Factor’ is ‘Authority to Act’. Everyone in the organization has the authority to suggest/develop/innovate. CI expects this contribution. ‘Flat Team gatherings’ (everyone has equal opportunity to voice their opinion) can bring together contributors (associates and leaders) who have required ‘operation’ understanding to offer ‘insights’ into improvement opportunities where suggestions for CI can be discussed, researched, vetted and prioritized for implementation.
Competitors look for your ‘Achilles Heel Opportunity’ to take market share. A ‘CI Focus’ on ‘Product and Features’, ‘Manufacture and Service Delivery’ plus ‘Sales’ develops a defensive and supports an offensive approach to ‘seed’ ‘Innovation, New Product Development and Market Expansion’ which leads to BUSINESS SURVIVAL and BUSINESS GROWTH!
Todd Adams
OBR Optimization Engineering: Lean Six Sigma CI, ERP Software Development, Quality Systems Enhancement, Business Process Improvement, CI Project Work. www.OBREngineering.com; POC: Todd Adams, Todd.Adams@OBREngineering.com; (424) 241-0290.
As the Famous Sales Guru Grant Cardone says, 10X your OBSESSION!
