What is your approach to continuous improvement in a manufacturing environment?

motivation is a best thing for continuous improvement for manufacturing unit.each and everyone expect the recognition for their suggestion

I prefer the “Value Added “ method which measures the wealth created by a company. It is equal to the income from sales of the product less the expenditure on purchased materials and services. In short, Value Added measures the net output rather than the gross output of the business enterprise. An analysis of the Value Added can be used to assess the efficiency of the company.

In general when one talks of continuous improvement in any of teh fields (production, maintenance, quality, safety, projects, services etc), my personal experience tells me to follow the following few things or tools you may call:
1. First i had already mention is the standardization of the system and gradually improving upon it.
2. Benchmarking the processes, activities. Like in maintenance its MTBF and MTTR. We need to always set a benchmark for our activities and work to find ways and means to improve upon those through Brainstorming, Why-Why analysis, SGA, QC or any other improvement tools. We used to keep track of the MTBF and MTTR and used to improve upon those by incorporating the best practices, adequate tools and tackles and through quality circle.
3. Why-Why analysis as mentioned is an important tool to know the root cause for any deviations from the set standards. I have been using the same and have benefitted a lot. Any breakdown in the system use to be analysed through this tool to get to the root cause and tehn horizontally implementing teh findings on similar machines or processes or activities.
4. The work environment should be congenial for the employees to bring out ideas. There should be forum for brainstorming wherein cross functional team should sit and discuss upon teh issues in hand.
5. Suggestion Box Scheme is another way of getting feedback from the workmen because these are the people who are at teh front and they are the one who know the system as the back of their hand. They should be thoroughly involved in the process of ideating as they brings the best of the ideas.
6.I have been involved in TPM activities and its one of teh best improvement tools i have come across. Its very systematic and gives a wholesome approach to the entire system.

My approach is to scrutinize the effectiveness of the supporting systems looking for ways to hone performance.

In my opinion for continuous improvement in a manufacturing environment i.e, reaching a step on a staircase of improvement. To move up to the next step, create a new process improvement team - you could include supplier, customer and factory floor/service engineers and get a new perspective on your processes. Their new perspective could help you find new improvements.

For any enterprise to be successful, it has to create a meaningful, user friendly and easily dechiperable standards. But standards alone can't be a solution, it is basically a target which has to be focussed on.

To standardize a method is to choose out of the many methods the bestone, and use it. Standardization means nothing unless it means standardizing upward.

Today’s standardization, instead of being a barricade against improvement,is the necessary foundation on which tomorrow’s improvement will be based.

If you think of ‘‘standardization’’ as the best that you know today, but which is to be improved tomorrow—you get somewhere. But if you think of standards as confining, then progress stops.

Using this standard, businesses usually use two different prongs of approach for improvement:

Two parameters play major role in continuous improvement.

01 Technology - we need better tools and instruments to compare with benchmark industry.

02. Attitude - Attitude development of individuals towards quality and product improvements

I would prefer to look at the efficiency of the supply chain relationships i.e how the way that we manage these ensures that both partners in the relationship are working effectively together. Looking at a relationship from both sides jointly will show up strengths and weaknesses that are often not seen when viewed from a single perspective. So while things may appear to be running well on the surface there may be underlying weaknesses that will eventually lead to problems in the future. There are tools available to do this type of assessment that result in bottom line improvements not just from cost cutting but from increased product profitability.