Essay on Incremental Improvement Process.
The incremental improvement process involves certain steps from identifying the area needing improvement and finding methods for improvement to implementing such improvement.
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There may be a variety of specific approaches to achieving excellent quality and one of these approaches involves the following general steps shown in the diagram.
1. Identify the area which requires improvement:
Either the management or a quality circle team can identify such area. Some of the areas that might be chosen for quality improvement may include:
i. A significant decrease or elimination of defective units produced.
ii. A reduction in idle time of machines as well as personnel.
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iii. A reduction in employee absenteeism or tardiness.
iv. A reduction in production cycle time.
v. A reduction in inventory on hand.
2. Organize a quality improvement team:
Such a team must be skilled in the art of analyzing situations under study and creatively thinking of improving such situations. This team may include specialists in the area as well as those who are either involved in the situation or are affected by it. Members of this team might include.
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i. Associates directly responsible for the work being done.
ii. A representative of the customers receiving the benefit of the work, if necessary.
iii. A representative of the suppliers providing input into the work.
iv. A representative from management who can either make decisions or serve as a liaison between the team and the top management.
v. One or more experts in the area under study.
3. Identification of the extent of improvement required:
The improvement can only be done within given resources and there is always an upper limit beyond which no improvement is possible. Accordingly the extent of improvement required must be realistic and attainable.
For example, as described earlier, American Express was able to cut its time required to approve credit card applications by 50 percent and that is as far as it could have been possibly done.
Further improvements were not possible because of procedures required for approval and that takes time. Similarly, you can reduce waiting time at a bank for cash withdrawal only to some degree with given resources. Accordingly, the quality team must determine as to how much improvement is required in order to match the very best and that would become the objective.
4. Analyze current performance:
All aspects of the current operations are to be analyzed in order to determine as to which aspects are already operating in an optimal manner and which aspects are in need of improvement and can be improved.
Some of the factors to be analyzed include problems related to equipment, materials, and work methods, people performing the work and any other environmental constraints such as legal requirements and so on.
Then, by using work study methods such as time and motion study, the work can be divided into its elements and then the elements can be studied for improvement in saving time or reducing waste and so on.
5. Test selected solutions:
Once the area of operation under consideration has been analyzed and possible steps for improvement have been specified, the next step for the quality team is to test such solutions in the form of pilot studies to determine the best solution.
Before the final solution is implemented, however, it is necessary to make a cost- benefit analysis and the question then becomes: is the improvement worth the cost? For example, if adding one more cashier window at the bank reduces the average waiting time of a customer by only one minute, then such an improvement may or may not be worth it.
6. Implement the improvement:
If the improvement is determined to be beneficial, then it must be implemented. Many such incremental improvements can greatly enhance a company’s competitive position in a highly quality demanding market. The idea is to use incremental approach in a continuous effort to keep on improving both products and processes.