J
Continuous Improvement
Most activities commonly used to ‘improve’ a process are not ‘improvement’ activities at all. They are ‘maintenance’ or ‘corrective’. ie; they try to ensure the process is and does just what it was intended to do, in the way that it was intended. Audit does this. Inspection does this. Even manufacturing engineering does this, or little more than this, in most organisations.
I see ‘continuous improvement’ as small, incremental steps resulting from an ongoing analysis of the process, looking for opportunities to reduce waste and improve predictability, not just to keep the process doing what it should be doing, but making it do it better and differently. (in today’s world, this is a luxury)
4.14.3, Preventive action, seems to be telling me to do this but I can see problems; If I audit Accounts and say; “You only empty the invoices in-tray once per day (once per month?) and this is unhelpful for Procurement”, they will tell me that that is the way it has always been done and they don’t have resources to do it any other way. I can’t write it up as a non-conformance.
I can go to 4.2.3, Quality Planning, and try to get them to establish targets and plans to achieve them. (or I can throw snowballs at the moon)
Continuous Improvement is a nice thing to do. In fact, to my mind, it is the only thing to do - nothing else can guarantee your survival - but it is a very difficult thing to get people to do. We need all the levers we can get our hands on and we need to take them to Management review and bulldose them through. But, even if we get a good hearing, the chances are that nothing will happen. Anyone can understand the need to fix this mornings fires, but noone can delegate time to address an issue that is marginal (hense small, incremental progress), let alone go out to look for something that may not exist.
Is it Preventive action?
Is it Quality planning?
Does ISO 9000 offer any other leverage?
But, before we get embroiled in this; It is just an opener taken from my perspective. I’m sure there is a wide range of points of view, concerning continuous improvement, and maybe we should open it out first.
rgds, John C
Most activities commonly used to ‘improve’ a process are not ‘improvement’ activities at all. They are ‘maintenance’ or ‘corrective’. ie; they try to ensure the process is and does just what it was intended to do, in the way that it was intended. Audit does this. Inspection does this. Even manufacturing engineering does this, or little more than this, in most organisations.
I see ‘continuous improvement’ as small, incremental steps resulting from an ongoing analysis of the process, looking for opportunities to reduce waste and improve predictability, not just to keep the process doing what it should be doing, but making it do it better and differently. (in today’s world, this is a luxury)
4.14.3, Preventive action, seems to be telling me to do this but I can see problems; If I audit Accounts and say; “You only empty the invoices in-tray once per day (once per month?) and this is unhelpful for Procurement”, they will tell me that that is the way it has always been done and they don’t have resources to do it any other way. I can’t write it up as a non-conformance.
I can go to 4.2.3, Quality Planning, and try to get them to establish targets and plans to achieve them. (or I can throw snowballs at the moon)
Continuous Improvement is a nice thing to do. In fact, to my mind, it is the only thing to do - nothing else can guarantee your survival - but it is a very difficult thing to get people to do. We need all the levers we can get our hands on and we need to take them to Management review and bulldose them through. But, even if we get a good hearing, the chances are that nothing will happen. Anyone can understand the need to fix this mornings fires, but noone can delegate time to address an issue that is marginal (hense small, incremental progress), let alone go out to look for something that may not exist.
Is it Preventive action?
Is it Quality planning?
Does ISO 9000 offer any other leverage?
But, before we get embroiled in this; It is just an opener taken from my perspective. I’m sure there is a wide range of points of view, concerning continuous improvement, and maybe we should open it out first.
rgds, John C
