Continuous Improvement

Continually improving performance should be a permanent objective of any organisation, and needs to be at the forefront of its mission and values. This article examines how making continuous improvement part of an organisation’s culture creates and maintains an environment of excellence and high performance.

Six Sigma is a highly disciplined methodology that helps organisations to develop and deliver near perfect processes. We provide some insights into the Six Sigma approach to continuous improvement in this article.

Kaizen is a Japanese management philosophy that encourages organisations to implement constant, incremental changes to practices, processes and procedures In this article, we outline the concept of Kaizen and the impact it can have on organisations.

The 5S Philosophy of Kaizen is a five step guide to discipline and good housekeeping in the workplace. We outline each of the steps here.

Many of the best improvement ideas come from groups known as quality circles. This article outlines the key points to consider when forming a quality circle.

Organisations have a number of tools at their disposal when they are undertaking continuous improvement initiatives. This article outlines some of the most popular tools, highlighting how they are used to monitor the success of improvement measures.

It is essential that organisations have robust processes in place to meet the needs of their customers. Effective process design is, therefore, key to the success of any organisation, and should be an integral element of any continuous improvement initiative. Here, we discuss what is involved in process design and introduce some fundamental design types.

Systems theory is the study of a group of elements that combine to produce one end result. This article offers an introduction to systems theory, and explains how the concept could be useful to organisations as they look to change their processes and procedures.