Continuous Improvement and Lean Quality Management

Continuous Improvement (CI) is defined as a continual appraisal of what have been done, what is yet to be done, what needs to be done and actions taken and yet to be taking”.

There are seven steps in “Continuous Improvement Process Model” as explained below:

• Step 1: Set the Stage for Process Improvement 
• Step 2: Select a Process to Improve
• Step 3: Define the Process
• Step 4: Standardize the Process
• Step 5: Tighten the Process
• Step 6: Improve the Process
• Step 7: Assess Improvement Performance

CI cannot be carried off without individual improvement. Therefore, an “Individual Improvement Model” is presented consisting of seven steps:

• Step 1: Envision Personal Improvement
• Step 2: Enable Personal Improvement
• Step 3: Focus on Improvement
• Step 4: Improve Your Job
• Step 5: Improve Yourself
• Step 6: Help Others Improve
• Step 7: Evaluate Improvement Progress

Five primary aspects of an organization are affected from CIP transformation. These aspects are environment, structure, individual and team activity, communication, and integration.

CIP includes eleven compatible and mutually supporting principles: constancy of purpose, commitment to quality, customer focus and involvement, process orientation, continuous improvement, system-centered management, investment in knowledge, teamwork, and conservation of human resources, total involvement, and perpetual commitment.

In the Continuous Improvement principle context, there are crucial steps as stated below:

• Promoting small improvements
• Research and development - innovation
• Measuring performance
• Improving through projects
• Communicating with data
• Reducing process variability
• Reducing the vendor base
• Preventing defects
• Managing upstream processes

Lean is one of the main constructs in continuous improvement, and generally, it is synonymous with eliminating wastes. It is true that lean is a continuous improvement process. Continuous improvement is one of the main concepts of Lean Management, and it is used synonymous with Kaizen. Elimination of waste, Just-in-Time, perfect quality, visual management, and human resources management are the other main concepts in lean thinking.

Lean as a business improvement method is to produce better products or deliver better services using fewer resources.

There are three types of waste mentioned within the TPS: muda, mura and muri.

There are seven types of muda as explained below:

1. Overproduction – Producing items more than required at given point of time is the first type of waste. According to the Ohno, it is so important because it causes unnecessary movement and transport waste.
2. Waiting – It is the easiest waste to detect. As it can be understood from the name, workers or products wait for raw material, the machine, information, etc.
3. Unnecessary Transport – This waste is about the material/human transportation from one place to another place. Damage risk should not be ignored in this context.
4. Over processing – Working on a product before the requirement is called over processing.
5. Excess Raw Material – Over processing waste is the reason of this kind of waste.
6. Unnecessary Movement – This waste is about ergonomic factors which affect the workers’ quality of working life.
7. Defects – According to the quality problems, this waste can occur. Some of the parts need to be reproduced or diminished.

The five principles of lean are Value, Value Stream, Flow, Pull and Perfection. Defining “Value” is the critical starting point in lean context. It must be defined in terms of a specific product by the ultimate end customer. Activities which do not create value are seen as waste. All the activities are classified in three categories in a “Value Stream”: Value added, non-value added and non-value added but necessary. Womack and Jones call non-value added but necessary activities as “Type One Muda”, which create no value but seem to be unavoidable with current technologies or production assets. On the other hand, “Type Two Muda” is used for non-value added activities that create no value and are immediately avoidable. “Flow” principle is about “progressive achievement of tasks along the value stream so that a product proceeds from design to launch, order to delivery and raw materials into the hands of the customer with no stoppages, scrap or backflows”. “Pull” principle is the opposite of “push” principle. “A system of cascading production and delivery instructions from downstream to upstream in which nothing is produced by the upstream supplier until the downstream customer signals a need” is the definition of pull system. The last principle of “Perfection” is about continuously improving the value, value stream, flow and pull

Jidoka is a Japanese term used for “Autonomation — automation with human intelligence”. Jidoka is the quality perspective of lean and has different approaches in contrast to traditional quality studies. As a consequence of traditional quality perspective, there are quality control points, and statistically determined samples are investigated whether they are qualified or not in there. By the way, in jidoka equipment are designed to stop automatically and they can detect and call attention to problems immediately whenever they occur. It is the mechanical side of jidoka. In addition to this difference, in human side of jidoka, operators have the authority to stop the production flow whenever they note anything suspicious. They concentrate on tasks instead of monitoring each machine continuously. The basic five steps of jidoka are enumerated by Grout and Toussaint (2010): Detect the problem, stop the process, restore the process to proper function, investigate the root cause of the problem, and install countermeasures. Thanks to the jidoka principle, high quality products can be produced, and there will not be undetermined low-quality product problem according to sampling. Stopping assembly lines is seen very costly intuitively, but in the long run, Ohno (1988) demonstrated that stopping the line and solving problems actually led to better performance.

Andon is the Japanese form of “Signal” and it is one of the lean tools. Jidoka cannot be thought without andon. Andon is a visual aid which highlights where action is required and it is vital to detect the problem. A pull-cord or button is used to activate the alert generally. With the warning lights which are incorporated into an easily visible, overhead sign board, the area or specific workstation that has the problem can be identified.

Mistake-proofing is called as “Poka-Yoke” in Japanese. Poka-yoke helps a worker to avoid (yokeru) mistakes (poka). To eliminate defects by preventing, correcting, or highlighting errors as they occur is the aim of poka-yoke. Poka-Yoke, is a tool that can be used to achieve zero defect manufacturing.

Hansei is a Japanese word used for “self- reflection”. In reflection meetings (hansei-kai), experienced failures are identified and clear plans for future efforts are being created to take appropriate action to avoid reoccurrence.

Kaizen is the Japanese form of the “Continuous improvement”. Literally it means change (kai) for good (zen). It is defined as “a means of continuing improvement in personal life, home life, social life, and working life”.

“Incremental and continuous improvement” and “involvement of the entire workforce” in that process are the two key features of kaizen. To make the process more efficient, effective, under control and adaptable are the aims of the Kaizen. Aforementioned improvements are usually accomplished with little or no expense. There is no need for sophisticated techniques or expensive equipment. Seven statistical tools such as pareto diagrams, cause and effect diagrams, histograms, control charts, scatter diagrams, graphics and control charts can be used to solve problems in Kaizen. Leadership is the most important factor to implement the Kaizen successfully. Strong commitment by executives, long-term orientation, a sense of oneness, trust and teamwork among all levels of personnel, and willing cooperation of workers are the other important factors.

5S is the acronym of the five Japanese words Seiri (Sort), Seiton (Straighten), Seiso (Shine), Seiketsu (Systematize), and Shitsuke (Standardize/Self- Discipline). As a workplace discipline, it is defined as “the system of rules and standards for organizing, cleaning, developing and sustaining a productive work environment”

Lean Six Sigma is defined as “an emerging technology which is used to improve the performance, efficiency and customer satisfaction to sustain in competitive manufacturing and nonmanufacturing environment”.

Six Sigma- an advanced version of TQM - is defined as a “well-established approach used to identify and eliminate defects/failures in business by focusing on process performance characteristics that are very critical to quality”.

Benchmarking is simply defined as “a continuous process of performance measuring by the comparison with the strongest competitors or leader enterprises in the field”.

Benchmarking is the process of understanding what is important for your organization’s success, understanding your own processes, finding and learning from others whose processes are better than yours, then adapting that learning to improve your performance. Benchmarking is far more than copying. It requires deep self-assessment and the ability to translate practices that work in another context into a process appropriate to your own organization.

Benchmarking is categorized in two ways. In the first class, there are four types of benchmarking. Comparisons are made against another department within one’s organization in “internal benchmarking”, on the other hand with direct competitors in “competitive benchmarking”. Competitive benchmarking provides target for excellence as it provides information on what customers really want and what competitors are doing to meet customer needs. The third type is “industry benchmarking” in which the benchmarking partner is not a direct competitor, but share the same industry. The last type in this class is “generic benchmarking” in which comparisons of processes and practices are made regardless of the industry or field of the partner. The second classification is based on practices or processes which are benchmarked: process, performance, or strategic. Process benchmarking focuses on discrete work processes and operating practices. On the other hand, products and services are compared in performance benchmarking. As a last type of benchmarking in this class, strategic benchmarking examines how companies compete.

The benefits of benchmarking are listed in Meade (2007; p.7) as follows:

• provides a systematic approach to quality improvement
• brings an external focus to internal activities
• utilizes existing knowledge about the effectiveness of particular processes
• identifies new ideas and technologies
• exposes the need for change
• establishes the extent of improvement required
• demystifies and encourages change
• provides a framework for change
• decreases subjectivity in decision making
• legitimizes targets by basing them on hard data
• enables the incorporation of “bestpractices” into one’s organization
• encourages a learning culture which is open to new ideas
• promotes contacts and networks

The benchmarking process consists of four major phases: The Approach phase, the Deployment phase, the Review phase, and the Improvement phase.