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Management 515

Continuous Process Improvement

Definitions

A continual improvement process, also called continuous process improvement (CPI), is an ongoing effort to improve products, services, or processes. These efforts can seek improvement over time (evolutionary) or breakthrough (revolutionary) improvement. Customer-valued processes are constantly evaluated and improved in the light of their efficiency, effectiveness, and flexibility.

In American English, common usage suggests that the word "continuous" should be used for things that are literally or figuratively unbroken over time (as in a continuous function), whereas the word "continual" should be used for things that continue in discrete jumps. When this distinction is enforced, it is more accurate to speak of continual processes improvement than of continuous process improvement.

Core of All Improvement Processes

All continuous process improvement (CPI) processes include these four steps its core.

PLAN. Establish the objectives and processes necessary to deliver results in accordance with the expected output (the target or goals).

DO. Implement the plan, execute the process, make the product. Collect data for charting and analysis in the following "CHECK" and "ACT" steps.

CHECK. Study the actual results and compare against the expected results (targets or goals from "PLAN") to ascertain any differences. Look for deviation in implementation.

ACT. If the CHECK shows that the PLAN that was implemented in DO is an improvement to the prior standard (baseline), then that becomes the new standard (baseline) and the next iteration begins. If the CHECK shows that the PLAN that was implemented in DO is not an improvement, then the existing standard (baseline) will remain in place.

Common CPI Principles

Process Improvement Plan – “Without a plan, you do not know where you are going.” The Project Management Institute Project Management Book of Knowledge (PMBOK) recommends every process improvement plan run alongside actual project phases. A good plan will be specific on goals and expectations

Process for Improving – This principle ensures a process is set up for improvement. For example, will X-Bar control charts be used to determine acceptable and non-acceptable levels within a project or will the PDCA be employed?

Root Causes – Improvements must detect and correct root causes. Fault tree diagrams are often used to identify root causes in order for issues to be controlled or improved.

Monitoring Improvements – This may be the most useful part of CPI as it ensures improvements are not lost through “regression to the former”

Developing Quality Assurance Plans – View QAPs as lessons learned and a method for codifying techniques

Critical Factors

Strong executive leadership

Clear and measurable goals

Alignment of business case and performance measures

Clearly defined roles and responsibilities

Customer focus (Voice of the Customer)

Change must be part of the culture

Strong executive leadership. Without executive involvement to “champion” an effort, process improvement is normally doomed to failure. People resist change. If the people believe that the boss does not care, the initiators of change will be ignored and sometime consciously opposed.

Clear and measurable goals. If you do not know where you are gong, any path will get you there.

Alignment of business case and performance measures. Change usually has a cost. If the change cannot be justified in a business case, then change should not be attempted (unless the change is mandated by some authority).

Clearly defined roles and responsibilities. This is the same as with any project-oriented effort. In many cases, a change effort can be viewed as a time-bound project. The same project principles apply.

Customer focus (Voice of the Customer). The most common mistake made in change efforts is not including the customer in the process. The customer could be the buyer of products, an internal customer (e.g., all employees are customers of the payroll department), or some stakeholder, (e.g., the IRS is a customer of tax filings).

Change must be part of the culture. Change is hard. People resist change. Unless the people see a benefit (meaning the change is good for me), change will be resisted. The leadership team that can inculcate the idea of change and improvement in the culture of the firm will be the most successful.

Most Popular

Continuous Improvement Method	Popularity
Lean manufacturing	40.5%
Lean and Six Sigma	12.4%
Total quality management	9.9%
Agile manufacturing	3.8%
Toyota Production System	3.1%
Six Sigma	3.1%
Theory of Constraints	3.0%
Other	5.2%
No Methodology	19.1%

Source: IndustryWeek, 9 April 2007

Flavors of CPI

Six Sigma

Lean

Lean Management

Lean Six Sigma

BPR

ISO 9000-2000

ISO/IES 2000

Quality

Total Quality Management

Just in Time

Kaizen

Agile Management

Hoshin Planning

Poka-Yoka

Design of Experiments

Process Excellence

Theory of Constraints

Here is a list of CPI methodologies with which I am familiar. Each is best for some types of change and each specific change effort has a best suited method.

Sadly, few change practitioners are familiar with more than a few methods. Firms end up using the method that is most familiar (or cheapest) instead of the best suited.

Lean Six Sigma

DMAIC

Define. Clearly describe process(es)

Measure. Collect data

Analyze. Anything out of tolerance?

Improve. Reduce variation, waste, or non-value added sub-processes

Control. Don’t allow the process to regress to the old norm

I am most familiar with Lean Six Sigma (LSS). In fact, I am an LSS Black Belt.

LSS is useful for data-intensive process where a normal range of acceptability is present. In processes where data are not definable or easily obtainable, LSS may not be the most suitable method.

The Department of Defense has adopted LSS as it official (and only) CPI method. For the DoD, all problems are nails that must be driven with the LSS hammer.

Many firms suffer from this same shortsightedness.

Capability Maturity Model Integration

Capability Maturity Model Integration (CMMI) is a process improvement training and appraisal program and service administered by Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) and required by many DoD and U.S. Government contracts, especially in software development. CMU claims CMMI can be used to guide process improvement across a project, division, or an entire organization. CMMI defines five maturity levels for processes:

Initial—We have unpredictable processes

Managed—We have reasonably predictable processes

Defined—We follow well codified processes

Quantitatively Managed—We measure and control our processes

Optimizing—We use CPI

CMMI is not so much a CPI method as a way to evaluate how mature your firms process are.

Few firms ever achieve level 5 and those that do seldom retain that rating beyond the next evaluation.

The U.S. Congress several years ago implemented a rule that required that any company that does business with the federal government must be CMMI level 3 or better. So few companies are able to obtain that rating, that the rule was eventually rescinded.

CMMI Level 5 – United States

Parent Company	Element(s)	Type
CACI International, Inc.	Logistics and Material Readiness Division	DEV v1.3
General Atomics Aeronautical Systems, Inc.	Aircraft Systems Group; Full directed Programs; Systems and Software; Development and Production	DEV v1.3
General Dynamics Mission Systems	Maritime & Strategic Systems	DEV v1.3
Hewlett Packard Enterprise	US Public Sector CECE High maturity Organization	DEV v1.3
Hewlett Packard Enterprise	US Public Sector Medicare Systems High Maturity Organization	DEV v1.3
HPE Enterprise Service	HPE TennCare Account	SVC v1.3
RelayHealth Corporation	Pharmacy Solutions	DEV v1.3
US Army ARDEC Armament SEC	ARDEC Armament Software Engineering Center	DEV v1.3