The notion of continuous improvement is at the heart of total quality, lean and even six sigma processes, all of the current star methods for organizational excellence. It is based roughly on the plan do check act cycle introduced by Doctor Edwards Deming. But despite all the efforts to identify the means to improve, without compliance management software, companies will have great difficulty keeping the effort on track.
For a quarter of a century after the last world war, production was primarily an American process, and anything made in the US would sell anywhere in the world. Competition did not start to cut into American market share until about 1972. Smaller foreign cars helped Americans cope with the oil shock, and introduced the idea that foreign products could also be quality goods.
The resulting blow to the US economy caused a severe reaction not only in the business community but in the political realm as well. The image of US Senators smashing Japanese products with a sledge hammer is illustrative of the emotions of the time. In reality, companies eventually had to face the fact that they had been lulled into a sense of complacency by success.
The concepts touted by Doctors Juran and Deming were simple enough, but had been rejected by manufacturers who believed their success demonstrated they had no need of process improvement. Misreading the global desire for products after years of sacrifice during a war blinded companies to the lack of competitors. It took several decades to rebuild the manufacturing capability that had been destroyed.
The natural response for North American companies was to try to identify what was being done differently overseas. Most believed it had to be something cultural, that made workers more compliant or harder working. The notion that corporate leadership had grown to distant from their production processes, or that those processes needed improvement was difficult to accept.
At its heart, the issue was about identifying waste in processes and energizing management to lead companies instead of just manage from on high. The plan, do, check, act cycle is mean to be a method for continuously improving a process and therefore the product or service made through it. While it is simple to state, it is difficult to execute, since manufacturing processes can be long and complex.
Finding what is being done inefficiently is usually a highlight of the effort, but it can be rendered moot without proper follow up. A great many organizations have implemented corrective inspection systems only to find that a year later the same problems are identified. Once something is found to be wrong, there must still be effort to identify a corrective action and then to ensure that action is accomplished.
The final piece of the renaissance was discovering the corrective action is not easy to track, especially for big processes. Everyone is so engaged in production that focusing on improving the process can get lost in the action. Compliance management software keeps the mediation effort on track so all the work finding improvements can come to fruition.
For a quarter of a century after the last world war, production was primarily an American process, and anything made in the US would sell anywhere in the world. Competition did not start to cut into American market share until about 1972. Smaller foreign cars helped Americans cope with the oil shock, and introduced the idea that foreign products could also be quality goods.
The resulting blow to the US economy caused a severe reaction not only in the business community but in the political realm as well. The image of US Senators smashing Japanese products with a sledge hammer is illustrative of the emotions of the time. In reality, companies eventually had to face the fact that they had been lulled into a sense of complacency by success.
The concepts touted by Doctors Juran and Deming were simple enough, but had been rejected by manufacturers who believed their success demonstrated they had no need of process improvement. Misreading the global desire for products after years of sacrifice during a war blinded companies to the lack of competitors. It took several decades to rebuild the manufacturing capability that had been destroyed.
The natural response for North American companies was to try to identify what was being done differently overseas. Most believed it had to be something cultural, that made workers more compliant or harder working. The notion that corporate leadership had grown to distant from their production processes, or that those processes needed improvement was difficult to accept.
At its heart, the issue was about identifying waste in processes and energizing management to lead companies instead of just manage from on high. The plan, do, check, act cycle is mean to be a method for continuously improving a process and therefore the product or service made through it. While it is simple to state, it is difficult to execute, since manufacturing processes can be long and complex.
Finding what is being done inefficiently is usually a highlight of the effort, but it can be rendered moot without proper follow up. A great many organizations have implemented corrective inspection systems only to find that a year later the same problems are identified. Once something is found to be wrong, there must still be effort to identify a corrective action and then to ensure that action is accomplished.
The final piece of the renaissance was discovering the corrective action is not easy to track, especially for big processes. Everyone is so engaged in production that focusing on improving the process can get lost in the action. Compliance management software keeps the mediation effort on track so all the work finding improvements can come to fruition.
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