Designing Continuous Improvement Process in an Organization - Research Paper Example

Designing a continuous improvement process in an organization An organization’s success is dependent on ability to improve quality, outputs and profit while a business needs superior performance in all the three areas. The objective of all the organizations is to give its customers the highest quality supplies and services at prices, which are fair and to make a high profit. It is necessary to design a continuous improvement process in an organization with the intention of achieving goals. There are levels of improvement that are associated with attaining continuous improvement. The successful improvement efforts in organizations come from these stages (Poirier & Houser 21). Stage 1: Cultural analysis The Initial process of the improvement effort should be an introduction assessment and understanding of how the process will work in the organization’s current culture. Initiated aspects should not undermine the values of the employees involved. It is preferable to build new values in the framework of the current culture than to impose a dramatic change. If change is necessary for the upgrading of the organization, the continuous improvement process will produce the changes. If time is a luxury, which cannot be afforded, management should initiate the basic changes, allow time for adjustment, and then embark on an improvement process with the revised organization (Poirier & Houser 38). The initial assessment reviews aspects that the senior management intends to achieve and methods in which productivity, quality, and profit improvement will become the critical parts of the triumph strategy. Failure to meet these requirements can lead to the effort being doomed to be a short-term program, most likely focused on dropping manufacturing expenditures. Those guiding the improvement process need to know existing cultural problems. For example, if sales are forbidden areas and not the subject to improvement review, the order entry will never reach the required standards (Poirier & Houser 38). Additionally, from the cultural perspective the important factors to consider, are the extent of importance the organization attaches to the function, and the goals of the organization in terms of quality of working life. For the success of the improvement effort, the organization should have a strong orientation towards the people sides of the system they promote (Poirier & Houser 38). It is necessary to evaluate all parts of the process, especially the people factor. When part of cost is related to people, for instance, the primary objective must be to keep the organization principal without risking its potential. Additionally, the amount of work must be managed so that redundancies, inappropriateness, obsolesce, and other personally debilitating factors do not enter the picture. The workload has to be kept as prime as the number of employees otherwise the organization will not optimize it performance. When performance is optimized and benefits derived, it is recommended that a part of these benefits be shared among the people who contributed to the achievements (Poirier & Houser 38). Stage 2: Dedications At this stage, there is the communication of inspirational message by the higher authority, and making of announcement that the process embodied within that message ought to be implemented. This stage requires enthusiasm and training of employees. The management has to be excited about a process that leads to the improvement of quality and efficiency. Due to enthusiasm, there will be hope that production cost will reduce, there will be customer satisfaction the organization will be a better working place. The prevailing attitude towards the functions of all employees, and their contributions to the organization is a very vital factor. Unless there is much dedication to the future values of employee in the trimming of organization, there is no need for the continuous improvement process (Gabriel, Fineman & Sims 330). Furthermore, support material and meeting time are devoted to the effort. The oversight committees come into existence, apparel bearing the process acronym appears throughout the organization, and action teams are formed. Furthermore, some early successes are achieved and publicized. Usually, at this stage, there should be a management exercise, which shows a firm support for the upgrading, which is not well understood and executed. The organization ought to choose the issues and objectives, which require much improvement efforts, while encouraging team problem solving in some stepped procedure under the direction of a trained facilitator (Gabriel, Fineman & Sims 330). Additionally, this stage requires the establishment of communication system to advertise the process and achievement stories of the organization. The senior executives are shown on films praising the significance and the virtue of the upgrading process. The management at the middle ought to be given the responsibility of securing implementation, and supervisors should encourage the required actions (Gabriel, Fineman & Sims 330). Stage 3 should take about eighteen months. The process falls into disuse because the leaders pay attention to other things and the middle managers go back to business as usual. This makes many organizations not to proceed to stage two. The withdrawal of the support by the senior level, and the lack of middle management knowledge on how to implement the process lead to the failure to move the process to the people, who are the real executors of all improvements. Additionally, the process stagnates because the manager and supervisors believe that the process has been achieved. They look at the short-term view of the effort, and think that the process is finished immediately after they have had identifiable results. In many organizations, the dedication to successful implementation is not cleanly dropped; it is maintained in some lukewarm fashion until a crossroad is reached, when people throughout the organization or unit watch intently to see how leadership will react. When the tenets of the improvement process are violated at that moment of crisis, the implantation goes into decline. If an organization wants to achieve success, they will have to repeat stage one if they fail, but if they successfully pass this stage, then they should proceed to level three. Stage3: Development of the action plan This stage involves macro analysis examination of the status of the organization, and where it intents to reach, and peoples’ thoughts about what it will take to reach there. This analysis should be performed from the internal and external viewpoint. Internal analysis involves operational audit, employees’ evaluation, or management overview should be conducted on every section of the organization. With the information obtained from such audits, evaluations against outside benchmarks of industry norms should be used to establish stretch measures of competitive performance. Progress to an improved position has to begin with a solid understanding of where the business is starting internally and externally. More demand should be placed on those units that compare dismally with their peers than on ones that are setting the industry standards (National Research Council 18). The review phase should turn next to the areas highlighted by the macro-overview. If the larger analysis, for instance, shows a significant gap between desired, and actual performance in certain areas of the organization, the logical next step should be to conduct a microanalysis. A closer look should be given to the area of concern to determine what the real issues are, what drives the inherent processes, and where the opportunities are, for improvement. In This stage, those conducting the improvement program should involve as many employees as appropriate, and encourage the use of statistical analysis, and review to establish the control points in the process. Moreover, they should encourage the use of process control reviews to determine where manual or automatic control techniques can be used to maintain the process consistency. It is also important to isolate the candidate projects for the team process consistency (National Research Council 18). Additionally this stage involves preparation and execution where those conducting the improvement process start by, preparation for the implementation of ideas and recommendations generated by the action teams. To ensure success, there should be the integration of productivity, quality, and cost improvement has to be defined and understood. There should also be the commitment to improvement procedures, and the related targets throughout the organization (National Research Council 18). Stage 4: Sustenance Organizations, which reach this level, do so because they acknowledge the many obstacles to sustain the process. They refuse to let the spark that encouraged the effort to die. They maintain their orientation to continuous improvement but struggle to find the problems and opportunities that have meaning across the whole organization. The management of the organization maintains the selection of improvement initiatives. However, a belief in the ability of a worker to contribute the information of action teams has become a standard process. After identifying a problem, there has to be the formation of the action team, which will be responsible in looking for possible solutions. Furthermore, people should be ready and willing to share ideas. Teams should be cross-functional and have workers and management representations (Potter-O’Grady & Malloch 132). Additionally, at this stage, there should de the identification of the weaknesses in the procedure. It is also important to include how rewarded, promotions, information, and criticism are handled, recognized, and the improvement efforts started. Moreover, training is a major factor at this stage because the workers start to know their areas of need, instead of waiting for the management to do that. Communication should be open and the traditionally closed areas are exposed to a more involved and contributing personnel (Delanty & Fahri Isin 44). Some organizations can maintain the effort at this level, and have employees who work hard until some success is achieved. However, some organizations end up having island of success instead of enjoying companywide implementation. The improvement processes occur in the areas, which need the help provided by the particular process. Some sectors ignore the designated process and conduct their own way of improvement (Delanty & Fahri Isin 44). Those organizations, which successfully transit to this stage, negotiate the moment of problems and signal throughout that the process will not be allowed to end. The ideas and the required improvements are enacted, and when the choice is quality, the decision goes with quality. The favoring of quality becomes very significant for those within the firm, and a sense of pride begins to grow. Champions appear throughout the organization, which foster the right way to do things instead of short-term, politically correct actions (Potter-O’Grady & Malloch 132). The employees’ involvements rise when the team problem solving grows in the organization. Teams include salaried, hourly, line, support, technical, and nontechnical employees. From managers to the newest employees, the thrust of the enhancement practice is continuously reinforced. There should be an attempt to improve the whole company instead of part of the company. Therefore, not only one concept should predominate but also the best of all ideas should be applied to situations need improvement. A thrust develops that defeats the usual cultural inertia and the process, begins to be inbuilt in how things are achieved. At this stage, leaders should not be afraid to accept shortcomings of their organizations, and they should encourage the discovery of the real chances to change what has been happening for too long. Some organizations do not practice like stage four organizations, until they are forced by a customer who insists on collaborating with only those organizations, which demonstrate characteristics of this stage. That is not the best way to move to this stage because it fails to show the true enthusiasm since the effort becomes an exercise that only focuses on the satisfaction of that customer. It means that the, management pretends to support, and employees feign to implement. Stage 4 requires full commitment in understanding the process of continuous improvement. Policy can be deployed downward in the usual way, and management can spell out the problems facing the organizations and its objectives. The action team should be formed early enough because the employees have knowledge on how to mobilize counteractive actions. Cultural obstacles are easily countered and the tradition should allow efforts that enhance progress. Many empowered people focus on quality, customer satisfaction, productivity, and cost improvement in a holistic way. The organizations and its stakeholders should move towards continuous improvement, competitive advantage, and sustainability (Delanty & Fahri Isin 44). Stage 5: Critique and continuance Analyzing requires managers and facilitators to review the current performance objectively, the action teams, and the results achieved. A critique isolates the elements that encourage success and those that inhibit it. Such review should be followed by changes and improvements to lead to greater effectiveness (Watson-Boone 45). The improvement process has become institutionalized. The policy deployment moves in both directions, and managements role necessitates more counseling and training of employees. Training is a must and is not on a payback basis. Furthermore, it should be done in all areas. Additionally, there should be idea generation, and it should rise to unprecedented heights, up to five to ten exploitable ideas per worker in a year. These ideas are vital because they help in showing the commitment to quality and customer satisfaction, and are immediately turned into team actions (Watson-Boone 45). The workers ought to be given the responsibility of collecting necessary information that can lead to the improvement of the organization. They should then analyze the information and thereafter recommend reasonable changes. Moreover, everyone in the organization who contributed towards the success of the organization should be acknowledge and rewarded. Rewards and appreciation are important because as the organization thrives on documented improvement (Watson-Boone 45). Accounting and control have moved to a higher and practical state, wherein all measurements are by facts, generated by those who perform the role. Activity based accounting, user friendly and helpful information system, and all support department activities help the employment process. There is a constancy of purpose behind the process that enables people to know their focus will not be changed just as they start to make progress. The organizations that forge into this stage are very few. Throughout the organization, employees should contribute concepts and ideas on how to finish the continuous improvement process and can proceed to higher levels of improvements. At this stage, the leadership ought to be active throughout the organizations. The organizations can extend what has been leant outside it without fear for failure (Hughes et al 85). This level is always an interesting level because cooperative efforts are very strong and everyone is engaged in the customer satisfaction process. Training should be extensive while skills moved forward without regard for the cost of training. When an organization it at stage five, it is ready to employ the concept of collaboration, at certain areas or throughout the organization,. It should start internally by forming alliances with workers so that the team efforts are strengthened. Moreover, the formation of the alliances can help the organization in the creation of a greater sense that the effort will be maintained. Next, it should move towards external collaborating with suppliers and customers. Conclusion An organization, which has successfully implemented the continuous improvement process, ensures high safety awareness. Such an organization has to ensure that its employees are comfortable and its employees are dedicated to making continual improvement through the generation of ideas, are accountable for their work, and actively participate on corrective action teams. Moreover, it should ensure that actions are centered on continually improving the quality products, processes, and system. Employees should have the required skills, information and are proactive in demonstrating the skills to customers (Petouhoff 129). Furthermore, they should have positive attitudes and the commitment to improve. The organization should also ensure that employees have an ingrained feeling that customers should be well informed thus striving to transmit all the information necessary to sustain a superior relationship. Moreover, demonstration of quality that is believable and exudes integrity, and trustworthiness by the employees is very vital. The service performance meets the customer requirements as verified by periodic survey checks (Hermon & Altman 97). Works Cited Delanty, Gerard. & Fahri, Isin. Handbook of historical sociology. New York, NY. SAGE. 2003. Print. Gabriel, Yiannis. Fineman, Stephen. & Sims, David. Organizing & Organizations. New York, NY. SAGE Publications Ltd, 2009. Print. Hermom, Peter. & Altman, Ellen. 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