Developing a sustainable CI culture

Developing a Sustainable CI Culture

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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

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?

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?

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?

Sustainable CI - ChallengesIm

pro

vem

ent

Time

Short termgains made

Lost and repeated results due to no sustainability

Results could be lost entirelyif 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, sustainedresults achieved

Awareness, education, organisation structurecreated to support lean Source: C. Craycraft, Whirlpool

Tactical CIKaizenSMED

…

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


9


AlignedStrategy

SituationalLeadership

ProcessDiagnosis &Management

TechnologyTools &

Techniques

Behaviour&

Engagement

Below the waterline Above the waterline


TechnologyTools &

Techniques

Behaviour&

Engagement

AlignedStrategy


TechnologyTools &

Techniques

Behaviour&

Engagement

AlignedStrategy



TechnologyTools &

Techniques

AlignedStrategy


TechnologyTools &

Techniques

Behaviour&

Engagement

AlignedStrategy



Behaviour&

Engagement

Sustainable CI

Lack of vision and inspirationUnrealised human potential & habitSub-optimised & narrow CI

Doing the wrong things right

No incremental or step improvement


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

(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?


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?


– 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

(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

(2) Reducing Variability - Standard Processes

Are your standard processes up to date, visible and applied around the site?

(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?

(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?

(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?


• 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?


• ‘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

Create Your Action Plan

Area Action(1) Leadership Behaviour

(2) Reducing Variation (Maintaining Processes)

(3) Workforce Engagement


Leadership & Management

Developing a sustainable CI culture