A ‘Continuous Improvement culture’ is one where both leaders and front line workers constantly drive for improvement, which will be evident from the ‘work habits’

1. Developing a Sustainable CI Culture
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2. Intent of Topic
• To understand organisational culture as a concept, and how to visualise it
• To consider the challenges involved in creating and sustaining Continuous
Improvement
• To define a Continuous Improvement culture in terms of activities and
behaviours:
1. Leadership Behaviour
2. Reducing ‘Variability’
3. Workforce Engagement
4. Sustaining Momentum
• Create our personal Action Plan to develop the Continuous Improvement
culture at our site

3. Organisational Culture – What Is It?
• We can start by asking some questions:
– What are the organisation’s Vision and Values?
– Do these communicate what behaviour is appropriate, and what is
not?
– Are these widely shared across the organisation?
– Are they reflected in the everyday actions of employees at all levels
– individually and collectively?
– Are there positive managerial behaviours – listening, coaching,
guiding, involving and problem solving?

4. Organisational Culture –
Words on a Piece of Paper?
• Becoming the ‘Earth’s Most Customer Centric Company’ is one famous
online retailer’s vision
• Their standard terms -> ‘Claims for damaged goods refunds must be
made within 30 days of receipt’
• The company was contacted about a printer/scanner – on opening the
box, the glass scanner bed was found broken – probably the result of
the manufacturer’s poor packaging
• This was over 90 days after the product had been despatched – it had
been stored unopened after receipt
• What do you think was the reaction from the young call-centre operator?

5. Words on a Piece of Paper?
– Continued
• After a brief pause, the call-centre operator explained the printer should
be re-packed and returned for a full refund, and that the company
welcomed the feedback about the manufacturer’s packaging
– (Did you expect that?)
• Does this kind of behaviour fit the organisation’s culture?
• Do we think that culture is widely shared across the organisation?
• Is it reflected in every day actions at all levels?
• What managerial behaviours would have helped bring this situation
about?

6. Sustainable CI - ChallengesImprovement
Time
Short term
gains made
Lost and repeated results
due to no sustainability
Results could be lost entirely
if organizational structure not
aligned to support and education
level of all employees not increased.
Improvement leveled off
and eventually stopped
due to lack of realizing
“true” CI opportunity
Greater, sustained
results achieved
Awareness, education,
organisation structure
created to support lean Source: C. Craycraft, Whirlpool
Tactical CI
Kaizen
SMED
…

7. Sustainable CI - Challenges
10 reasons for failure of sustained CI implementation
1. Lack of a clear vision
2. Lack of an effective communication strategy
3. Failure to create & communicate a real sense of urgency
4. Poor consultation with stakeholders
5. Lack of structure methodology & project management
6. Failure to monitor & evaluate the outcome
7. Failure to mobilise change champions
8. Failure to engage employees
9. Absence of a dedicated & fully resourced implementation team
10. Lack of sympathetic & supportive HR policies

8. Sustainable CI - Challenges

9. 9
Sustainable CI - Challenges
Aligned
Strategy
Situational
Leadership
Process
Diagnosis &
Management
Technology
Tools &
Techniques
Behaviour
&
Engagement
Below the waterline Above the waterline
Process
Diagnosis &
Management
Technology
Tools &
Techniques
Behaviour
&
Engagement
Aligned
Strategy
Process
Diagnosis &
Management
Technology
Tools &
Techniques
Behaviour
&
Engagement
Aligned
Strategy
Situational
Leadership
Process
Diagnosis &
Management
Technology
Tools &
Techniques
Aligned
Strategy
Situational
Leadership
Technology
Tools &
Techniques
Behaviour
&
Engagement
Aligned
Strategy
Situational
Leadership
Process
Diagnosis &
Management
Behaviour
&
Engagement
Sustainable CI
Lack of vision
and inspiration
Unrealised
human potential
& habit
Sub-optimised &
narrow CI
Doing the wrong
things right
No incremental
or step
improvement
Situational
Leadership

10. How to Recognise a Strategic CI Culture
• What is organisational ‘culture’?
• An easy way to define it could be “the sum of the individuals’ work habits”
• A ‘Continuous Improvement culture’ is one where both leaders and front line
workers constantly drive for improvement, which will be evident from the ‘work
habits’
• An organisation with a CI culture teaches CI processes, motivates and
empowers teams to seek improvement opportunities
• To the outsider how can this be ‘seen’?
– Leadership behaviours
– Attention paid to processes and to maintaining them
– Level of workforce engagement in the CI effort
– How momentum is sustained

11. (1) Leadership Behaviours
• What makes CI transformations successful?
• What do we expect leaders to do in a CI culture?
• If we establish the physical changes alone will they
deliver the improvement?
• How do we ensure we use the strategic approach
• What changes do we need to make to:
– The way we manage?
– The way we lead our teams?

12. (1) Leadership Behaviours
This is the president of a company in Japan participating in the site’s daily 5-S activities. Each
morning, the entire salaried management team works side by side to clean and organise the
plant. From washing floors and trimming hedges to cleaning bathrooms, no task is left
undone.
This may be an extreme example, but what kind of message do you think the president’s
actions send to his employees?

13. (1) Leadership Behaviours
– Be the example - spend time on the plant floor – ‘Go and See’
– Involvement with improvement project teams
• Line Balance Optimisation
• Planned Downtime Reduction
• Kaizen activities
• 5S
– Shift focus from simply ‘results’ to ‘process and results’
– Maintain the integrity of the Standard Processes
• Formal audits
• Asset Care, Root Cause Analysis, Health and Safety
• Ensuring effectiveness of Day and Night Shift Reviews, and Short Interval
Control meetings

14. (2) Reducing ‘Variability’
• Develop the ability to identify process weaknesses and
quantify the impact of improvement ideas
– Develop standard processes
– Document exceptions and use these to improve the process again
• Measure Process Adherence
– Emphasises to the workforce that standard processes are critical
– Helps to sustain processes
• Develop Contingency Plans
– Plan for the exceptions (e.g. Delivery failure on a critical material)
– What is the plan, how long will it run for, who decides when to return to
the standard process

15. (2) Reducing Variability
- Standard Processes
Are your standard processes up to date, visible and applied
around the site?

16. (3) Workforce Engagement
• Listen to the words that Apollo Command Module pilot,
Ken Mattingly, uses:
“We all are in this together, as a team effort;
We’re going to make it work.
And I don’t know how to make it work.
I don’t know how to do most of this mission,
But I do know that [...] that my piece of it
is going to work,
And you won’t fail because of me”
• Is Mattingly engaged in his task?
• How confident would his fellow crew
feel?

17. (3) Workforce Engagement
• Educate leaders on engaging the workforce
– In today’s ‘flatter’ organisations people are used to working independently –
does this make engagement more or less important?
• Publicly praise people
– Does this help get the workforce to do more of what makes the organisation
succeed?
– How can we do it?
• Use questions to guide decision making
– Should we always give directions, or should we use questions, to guide
direct reports to their own answers?
– When should we do this?
– Will this help develop them? How will it do this?

18. (4) Sustaining Momentum
• Understand the critical measures driving financial success
– How can we link CI activity to improvements in operating margin or capacity
which in turn lead to improved financial results?
– How do we help our teams to align their objectives to those of the plant?

19. (4) Sustaining Momentum
• Maintain the Visual Controls:
– Visual controls help turn Continuous Improvement concepts into directly
observable practices
– Is the status of every process visible and obvious?
– Can a ‘first time visitor’ to the site see this?
– Can we see the contrast between expected and current?
– Do we insist that the visual controls are maintained and current?
– How is the data from LineView being used and presented?

20. (4) Sustaining Momentum
• ‘Go and See’ Regularly
– Show you will be present in the production area
– Use what you see to refresh ideas and CI principles
• Assess Performance
– Audits
– Carrying out Action Plans

21. Create Your Action Plan
Area Action
(1) Leadership Behaviour
(2) Reducing Variation
(Maintaining Processes)
(3) Workforce Engagement
(4) Sustaining Momentum