Continual improvement (CI)

A continual improvement process, also often called a continuous improvement process (abbreviated as CIP or CI), is an ongoing effort to improve products, services, or processes. These efforts can seek "incremental" improvement over time or "breakthrough" improvement all at once. Delivery (customer valued) processes are constantly evaluated and improved in the light of their efficiency, effectiveness and flexibility.

Some see CIPs as a meta-process for most management systems (such as business process management, quality management, project management, and program management). W. Edwards Deming, a pioneer of the field, saw it as part of the 'system' whereby feedback from the process and customer were evaluated against organisational goals. The fact that it can be called a management process does not mean that it needs to be executed by 'management'; but rather merely that it makes decisions about the implementation of the delivery process and the design of the delivery process itself.

(source: wikipedia)

Why Need CI (Continuous Improvement),,,?

Because Continuous Improvement is systematically identifying and eliminating waste,as quickly as possible, and at the lowest possible cost. such as..

-Continually seeking ways to improve operations

-Not unique to quality – also applies to other process improvements

-Never ending process of achieving small wins

Areas for Improvement

-Machinery

-Materials

-Labor utilization

-Production methods

-etc

Benefit of Continuous Improvement......

1. Improved Quality at the Process

Continuous Improvement enforces working in-station, to standard operating procedures, as a key factor in achieving quality at the process

2. Eliminated Bottlenecks

Bottleneck processes are individual processes or tasks that take more time than other processes and slow production.  Continuous Improvement workshops focus on waste and work rebalancing to eliminate

bottlenecks.

3. Increased Visual Management

Being able to quickly identify and respond to abnormal conditions is critical to managing a manufacturing environment.  Visual Management tools are improved to Increase awareness and response, Allow for quick return to stable conditions.

4. Reduced Costs

Continuous Improvement Tools

1. For Generating Ideas:

-Brainstorming

-Employee Suggestion Box

2. To Collect & Organize the Data:

-Check sheet 

-Pareto charts 

-Flow charts (Process diagrams)

3. For Identifying Problems:

-Cause & Effect diagram 

-Scatter diagram 

-Histogram – a distribution showing the frequency of occurrences of a variable

-Statistical Process Control

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