Building a Culture of Continuous Improvement

Cover Sheet - Building a Culture of Continuous Improvement

Researcher(s)

Phil Warner
FMI Corporation
www.fminet.com

Topics

Summary

Continuous improvement, as used in this paper and in the industry, is the name of an approach to improvement known and used around the world for decades. It applies to processes in the office, project or anywhere within the organization. The major components of continuous improvement are often referred to as an acronym, DMAIC:

  • Define the problem
  • Measure what needs to be measured to define, track and improve the problem
  • Analyze the data
    • Find the core cause(s) of the problem
    • Diagram the process
    • Model the value stream
  • Improve the process.
  • Control the process and measure results to assure the improvement is working as planned or discover if it needs further attention.

The paper using case study references addresses the implementation of continuous improvement in an easily understood format.