Initiating a Continuous Process Improvement (CPI) program provides a great deal of excitement. At the top level, there is anticipation of great benefits to come, either through cost savings or increases in efficiency. In middle management, there is an exciting opportunity to use new tools to improve your processes. For everyone else there is a chance for your ideas to be heard and for your skills and expertise to be showcased to management and peers. Sure, there is always fear of change. But a well-managed implementation will alleviate most of that fear. Early in the CPI implementation good things will happen and people will see and feel the results.
The real challenge comes afterwards. Sustaining your Continuous Process Improvement program can be a challenge. Once the “quick win” projects have been completed and the “low-hanging fruit” has been captured, interest in CPI can begin to wane. It becomes harder to find projects with eye-popping benefits. Smaller gains (and lengthy projects) become more common, and staff at all levels start to wonder if improvements have peaked. Participation can drop off, and before you know it your Lean/Six Sigma initiative is openly discussed as “just another management fad that’s past its prime”.
So what can be done to improve this situation and restore vigor to your organization’s process improvement efforts?
One theory is that change initiatives are destroyed by something called “the frozen middle”; middle managers who impede change efforts (usually with great success). But why does this happen? Fear can be the underlying culprit. Fear of change can paralyze efforts to improve processes, especially if management senses that there will be worse repercussions for mistakes than for lack of participation in the program.
Another belief is that lack of training or ability is a primary cause for failing CPI efforts. I argue that a more accurate assessment would be a lack of coherent training, and a lack of directed ability. There is challenge, for example, in integrating Lean/Six Sigma training with daily operational tasks and organizational strategy. It might look simple on paper, but it is difficult to apply training when you already feel overloaded in your existing responsibilities and don’t know where to start.
So how do you fix the problem? Every situation is different and needs to be evaluated on its own. One CPI model that addresses these issues and provides guidance towards a solution is provided by An Integrated Structural Model Toward Successful Continuous Improvement Activity, written by Chih Wei Wu and Chyong Ling Chen. Their study describes a regenerative model for CPI sustainment that mirrors the Product Life Cycle (introduction, growth, maturity, and decline), and provides a template for injecting new life into your CPI program in order to avoid the “decline” stage. If you’ve never read it, their paper is worth a look.
What are your thoughts? What have you seen in practice that can help sustain process improvement efforts?
Wu, C. W., & Chen, C. L. (2006). An integrated structural model toward successful continuous improvement activity. Technovation, 26(5-6), 697-707. doi:10.1016/j.technovation.2005.05.002