Continuous improvement is about small changes on a daily basis to make your job easier. Many organizations start with more formal kaizen events to create energy around changing the culture and making dramatic changes.
When this type of event is always the place for a while, the meaning of Kaizen changes for the better. Which consistently indicates. Kaizen demanded efforts to never end in the organization for the improvement of everyone's involvement - the manager and the workers alike. In the previous post, I talked about improving fast caps about Lean, who showed this idea well.
After the execution of planning Inventory conducted and measured, the Organization's task now is to ensure the improvement happens running continuously. To meet the demand of customer's complex and varied, while ensuring the existence of profitable growth, the company should focus to continuous improvement. Make sure that the material and information flow smoothly and in speed.
In this final step, the company should create a mechanism or a practice that aims to:
- Find out the root cause of that be the cause of variation in inventory planning execution.
- Hold the review periodically to discuss areas of occurrence of impact, applying the ownership and put together a timeline to facilitate resolution.
- Implement a continuous improvement program and agreement on making stock with a key supplier.
- Reduce cycle time and lead time.
- Minimize the quantity safety stock.
- Running a data-based decision making process.
- Increase employee knowledge about the material.
This process is the last step from the inventory optimization initiatives.
This article is part of a series of Inventory Optimization
- Increase the effectiveness of the process of with a Business Assessment
- Avoid Waste by making Planning Stock Inventory
- Execution in accordance with Inventory Planning
- Do Performance Measurement based on Inventory Planning
Continuous improvement has its uses. If the expectation and goal is to modestly improve an existing product or service, then continuous improvement makes sense and should be applied. However, if the situation or need calls for a truly new product or service, continuous improvement can't countenance that need. It turns to existing products and services and seeks to make them better, rather than confronting the fact that consumers or markets may require a completely new, radical and undefined solution.
This is innovation too, and it's not magic, just a different way of framing the definition. Some of the tools are the same in incremental and disruptive innovation. But the mindsets, the expectations and the leaps of faith are very different.
If your innovation outcomes often result in products and services. That look a lot like the products and services you already possess. Your teams are too focused on continuous improvement.
Conclusion
The problem with Six Sigma, Lean and Continuous Improvement adherents is that they act as if innovation is somehow derivative or subordinate to these tools rather than acknowledging that innovation is a much broader set of outcomes and capabilities. That continuous improvement is a small portion of a much larger innovation umbrella.
When innovation is define in the context of Continuous improvement. It loses its power to engage and to create, to generate completely new and unexpected products, services and business models. Instead it is held captive to those who would seek a predictable but incremental solution every time.
After all, continuous improvement programs use brainstorming as a tool, seek to improve a situation or process or product and often result in a better solution.
Isn't that innovation?
Perhaps I can best illustrate by using an analogy. Someone who uses a "paint by numbers" kit and a famous artist - let's use Picasso - can both be called "artists".
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