Why Continuous Improvement is Worth the Investment
“The biggest room in the world is the room for improvement.”
– Helmut Schmidt
There is always room for improvement within an organization. Organizations that embrace this can grow and thrive in a fast-changing world, while organizations that stick to the status quo will get left behind. Most companies that successfully embrace a culture of continuous improvement (CI) will make their employee’s jobs easier and more efficient, save precious time and money, and will also learn how to get better value out of their current operations.
What is Continuous Improvement?
Continuous Improvement is a method for identifying opportunities for streamlining work and reducing waste. There are lots of models for Continuous Improvement including Six Sigma, lean, Kaizan and the Plan-Do-Check-Act (PDCA) cycle but no matter which method a organization chooses (or if they decide not to choose a formal method at all), the aim is to constantly examine processes in order to target areas of improvement.
Not every company utilizes a formal methodology or program. Establishing a formal program isn’t required to reap the benefits of continuous improvement. All that’s required is a dedicated effort to analyze your operations and a commitment to identify gaps to improve these operations. The Institute of Quality Assurance simply calls Continuous Improvement the process of ‘getting better all the time’.
Every part of an organization can be looked at through the lens of continuous improvement, from supplier relations to customer service or manufacturing processes. The primary objectives of CI are to:
Reduce waste in the forms of cost, time and mistakes
Identify savings opportunities
Analyze performance to ensure optimal efficiency and value
What are the benefits of Continuous Improvement?
Continuous Improvement enables you to constantly better your practices and efforts so that your employees, departments and organization are more efficient and more effective.
For example, large engineering projects that involve changing deadlines, project teams, schedules and other complexities are filled with opportunities to improve. If the organization does not embrace a CI focus, they miss critical gaps that can lead to huge losses in revenue, costly mistakes, and low utilization rates.
Continuous Improvement can benefit your company in many tangible ways:
Increased productivity - When you eliminate unnecessary steps that don’t add value, you make your process more efficient. This added efficiency means that employees take less time to complete their given task and can complete more work in the same time frame.
Improved quality - When you focus on continuous improvement, you naturally take note of what has and has not worked in the past. Refining your process results in streamlined, quality work. When you improve your process and quality, this reduces negative customer experiences and improves your brand reputation accordingly.
Lower Costs - When you eliminate waste in processes and find gaps where thing could be made more efficient, this naturally saves costs as a result. Increased productivity reduces labor costs, reduced turnover saves on training and on-boarding costs and a continuous focus on learning and improvement reduces the chances of making costly mistakes.
Improved employee satisfaction/morale - When employees are empowered to observe, analyze and improve the way they work, they’re more motivated than if they’re expected to simply apply the same old processes and methods. Anyone who’s done this knows how frustrating that can be! Continuous Improvement provides employees an opportunity to improve the job and have a positive impact on their colleagues and the organization as a whole which can be very rewarding.
Reduced employee turnover rate - A continuous improvement culture has been shown to boost employee engagement and reduce turnover rates. Employees who feel they are an active participant in the success of the company and feel they can have an impact on this will feel more connected to the organization and feel more committed to their work.
Whether or not you adopt a specific model of CI, it is important to foster a culture of continuous improvement and learning within the organization. The return on investment of this strategy is huge - resulting in more engaged employees, better quality services and products, and continual growth opportunities.
Want to see a dramatic ROI with Continuous Improvement in your organization? Contact us here to get a free demo of totaliQ today!