Advanced Improvement
PhD Program
Dr. Olfat Afifi
Lecture 1
Term 1
October 2021
Continual Improvement
• Continual improvement is fundamental to
success in a global environment.
• Customer needs are not static, they change
continually.
• The only way an organization can hope to
compete in the modern marketplace is to
improve continually.
Management’s Role in Continual
Improvement
• Establish an organization wide quality council (circle)
and serve on it.
• Work with the quality council to establish specific
quality improvement goals with timetables and
target dates.
• Provide necessary moral and physical support.
Physical support comes in the form of resources
needed to accomplish the quality improvement
objectives.
Management’s Role in Continual
Improvement
• Schedule periodic progress reviews and give recognition
where it is deserved.
• Build continual quality improvement in the regular reward
system, including promotions and pay increase.
The science of Improvement
W Edwards Deming concept of
Improvement
•appreciation of a system
•understanding of variation
•theory of knowledge
•psychology
Essential Improvement Activities
• Maintain communication: Communication is
essential to continual improvement.
• Correct Obvious Problems: In such cases, the
problem should be corrected immediately.
• Look upstream: Look for causes, not
symptoms. (Root cause Analysis)
Essential Improvement Activities
• Document problems and progress: It is not
uncommon for an organization to continue
solving the same problem over and over again
because nobody took the time to document
the problems that have been dealt with and
how they were solved.
• Monitor changes: Because the solution may
not solve the problem or only partially solve
the problem.
Structure for Quality Improvement
• Establish a quality council: The quality council has
overall responsibility for continual improvement. It
should include executive level decision makers.
• Develop a statement of responsibilities: Formulating
policy as it relates to quality, setting benchmarks,
establishing the team and project selection process,
provide necessary resources, implementing the
project, monitoring progress, and implementing
reward and recognition program.
Structure for Quality Improvement
• Establish the necessary infrastructure:
Subcommittees that are assigned specific
duties, project improvement teams,
quality improvement managers, quality
training program, and a structured
improvement process.
Improvement different measures
Measurement for Measurement for
research learning and process
improvement
Purpose To discover new knowledge To bring new knowledge
into daily practice
Tests One large "blind" test Many sequential,
observable tests
Biases Control for as many biases Stabilize the biases from
as possible test to test
Data Gather as much data as Gather "just enough" data to
possible, "just in case" learn and complete another
cycle
Duration Can take long periods of "Small tests of significant
time to obtain results changes" accelerate the
rate of improvement
The Scientific Approach
• The scientific approach involves making
decisions based on data, looking for the root
cause of problems, developing appropriate
solutions, and planning and making changes
instead of relying on short term fixes.
• Meaningful data are free from errors of
measurement and procedure.
• Too many attempts are made to solve
symptoms rather than problems.
Identification of Improvement
Needs
• Apply multi voting: Multi voting involves
using brainstorming to develop a list of
potential improvement projects. Team
members vote several times to decide which
projects to work on first.
• Identify customer needs: Identify pressing
customer needs and use them as projects for
improvement.
Identification of Improvement
Needs
• Study the use of time: If excessive amount of
time is devoted to a given process, problem,
or work situation, this could signal a trouble
spot.
• Localize problems: Problems tend to be like
roof leaks in that they often show up at a
location far removed from the source.
Categories of Improvement
• eliminate waste
• improve work flow
• optimize inventory
• change the work environment
• enhance the customer relationship
• manage time
• manage variation
• design systems to avoid mistakes
• Process approach
Development of Improvement Plans
• The first step is to develop a mission for the team. This
statement should clearly define the team’s purpose. 5
stages in the plan:
• 1. Understand the process: Before attempting to improve
a process, make sure every team member thoroughly
understands it.
• 2. Eliminate errors: In analyzing the process, the team may
identify obvious errors that can be quickly eliminated.
• 3. Remove slack: Analyze all the steps in the process to
determine if there are steps that could be done a better
way, or whether they need to be done at all.
Development of Improvement Plans
• 4. Reduce variations: Common causes result in slight
variations and are almost always present. Special
causes result in greater variations and are not always
present.
• 5. Plan for continual improvement: Each time a
problem or potential improvement is identified, an
improvement plan is developed (plan), implemented
(do), monitored (check), and refined as needed (Act).
Common Improvement Strategies
• Describe the process: To make sure that everyone involved in
improving a process has a detailed knowledge of the process.
• Standardize the process: To continually improve a process, all
people involved in its operation must be using the same
procedures – best, most effective, and most efficient.
• Eliminate errors in the process: This strategy helps delete
steps, procedures, and practices that are being done a certain
way simply because that is the way they have always been
addressed.
• Streamline the process: This can be done by reducing
inventory, reducing cycle times, and eliminating unnecessary
steps.
Common Improvement Strategies
• Reduce sources of variation: Can often be traced to
differences among people, machines, measurement
instruments, material, operating condition, and times of day.
After the source has been identified, this information should
be used to reduce the amount of variation to the absolute
minimum.
• Bring the process under statistical control: Special causes are
eliminated and a plan for continual improvement is developed.
• Improve the design of the process: Through experimentation.
What factors do you want to improve? What factors are going
to be measured (cycle time, yield, finish, etc)? Measure the
critical factors. Analyze the results. Act on the results.
Additional Improvement Strategies
• Group Technology: With group technology,
processes are arranged so that work flows in a U
shaped configuration. This can result in less time in
material handling, and less floor space use.
• Synchronized Production: Synchronized production
involves synchronizing the needs of the production
line with suppliers of the material needed on the line.
• Jidoka: Jidoka means halting an entire process when
a defect is discovered so that it will not cause
additional problems further down the line.
Additional Improvement Strategies
• Cost Curves: A cost curve shows graphically how
much cost accumulates until the consumer is billed
for the product. The tool helps managers economize
on the handling of orders.
• Mushroom concept: This is done by holding to
standard processes as long as possible in the overall
production cycle and adding different features only
at the end of the process so that a variety of
diversified products mushroom out at the end.
Kaizen
• Kaizen is the concept of continual improvement of people,
processes, and products.
• Management are responsible for allocating resources
necessary for kaizen to work, and promoting kaizen.
• Supervisors are responsible for improving communication in
the workplace, maintaining morale, providing coaching,
soliciting suggestions from employees, and making kaizen
suggestions.
• Employees are responsible for participating on teamwork
activities, making kaizen suggestions engaging in continual self
improvement activities, enhancing skills through education and
training, and cross functional training.
Goldratt’s Theory of Constraints
• Goldratt defines a constraint as anything that limits
an organization from achieving higher performance.
• Goldratt’s theory is based on the assumption that
every organization faces constraints.
• Identify the constraint. Exploit (turn into positive
factor, eliminate, or circumvent) the constraint.
Subordinate (constraint has greatest priority)
everything else to exploit the constraint. Eliminate
the constraint. If so, return to first step and continue
the improvement process.
The cause and effect diagram with the
addition of cards CEDAC Approach
• CEDAC is an acronym for cause and effect diagram with the
addition of cards. Three conditions must be present for
continual improvement to occur:
• A reliable system: For continual improvement to occur there
must be a standardized, reliable system.
• A favorable environment: The keys are leadership and
education. Leadership includes commitment to continual
improvement and allocation of resources. Education involves
employees becoming skilled in the use of improvement
system.
• Practicing as teams: It is important for team members to
practice together because work is performed by teams.
Six Sigma Concept
• The purpose of Six Sigma is to improve the
performance of processes to the point where the
defect rate is 3.4 per million or less.
• It was designed for use in high volume production
settings.
• The central core of Six Sigma concept is the six step
protocol for process improvement.
• 1. Identify the product characteristics wanted by
customers.
• 2. Classify the characteristics in terms of their criticality.
Six Sigma Concept
• 3. Determine if the classified characteristic are
controlled by part and/or process.
• 4. Determine the maximum allowable tolerance for
each classified characteristic.
• 5. Determine the process variation for each classified
characteristic.
• 6. Change the design of the product, process, or both
to achieve a Six Sigma process performance.
Lean Operations
• Lean means doing more with less and doing it better.
• Lean is about getting the right things to the right
place at the right time and in the right amounts.
• At the heart of the concept are the reduction of
waste and the improvement of work flow.
• Lean focuses on reducing and ideally eliminating:
overproduction waste, inventory waste, motion
waste, Transportation waste, over processing waste,
defects waste, waiting waste, and underutilization
waste.
Lean Six Sigma
• Lean is a continual improvement method that focuses on
reducing waste and improving process flow.
• Six Sigma is a continual improvement method.
• Lean Six Sigma combines the best of these two concepts.
• One of the strengths of Lean Six Sigma is its emphasis on
preparation of the key personnel (Green Belts, Black Belts,
Master Black Belts, and Champions) who will be responsible
for its deployment and ongoing operation.
• This preparation, coupled with well defined roles for
individuals adds to the potential for continual improvement
methods.
Summary
• Continual improvement is fundamental to success in a global
environment.
• Management’s Role in Continual Improvement: Management
needs to work with the quality council to establish specific
quality improvement goals with timetables and target dates.
• The scientific approach involves making decisions based on
data, looking for the root cause of problems, developing
appropriate solutions, and planning and making changes
instead of relying on short term fixes.
• Multi voting involves using brainstorming to develop a list of
potential improvement projects. Team members vote several
times to decide which projects to work on first.
Summary
• Study the use of time: If excessive amount of time is
devoted to a given process, problem, or work situation,
this could signal a trouble spot.
• Localize problems: Problems tend to be like roof leaks in
that they often show up at a location far removed from
the source.
• Group Technology: With group technology, processes
are arranged so that work flows in a U shaped
configuration. This can result in less time in material
handling, and less floor space use.
• Mushroom concept: This is done by holding to standard
processes as long as possible in the overall production
cycle and adding different features only at the end of the
process so that a variety of diversified products
mushroom out at the end.
• Kaizen is the concept of continual improvement of
people, processes, and products.
• Goldratt defines a constraint as anything that limits an
organization from achieving higher performance.
• The purpose of Six Sigma is to improve the
performance of performances to the point
where the defect rate is 3.4 per million or less.
• Lean means doing more with less and doing it
better.
• Lean Six Sigma combines the best of these
two concepts.
New Standards for Improvement
• Knowledge Management ISO 30401
• Innovation Management ISO 56002:2019
• ISO 9004:2018 for Sustained Success
• EFQM 2020
Thank you for listening
