Sustainable Growth:

Efficiency Improvement

Continuous Improvement Firm (CIF)

A Firm Continuously Improving on Customer Value Due to Improvements in Productivity and Quality

By Vadim Kotelnikov, Founder, Ten3 BUSINESS e-COACH – Innovation Unlimited, 1000ventures.com

 Yes!  You are in the right place!

This site is Ranked #1 by Google for

"Continuous Improvement firm"

out of about 2-million-wide (!!!) competition!

"Achieving good performance

is a journey

– not a destination."

 

8 Best Practices of Successful Companies

  • Use techniques (like "process mapping" and "benchmarking") to achieve continuous improvement... More

Quick and Easy Kaizen

3 Guiding Principles

  • The smaller ideas, the better. Kaizen is small ideas. Innovation takes time and is costly to implement, but kaizen is just day-to-day small improvements that when added together represent both enormous savings for the company and enormous self-esteem for the worker... More

Successful Implementation of Kaizen Strategy

7 Conditions

  • Top management commitment... More

5 Strategies for Creating a Culture of Questioning

  • Improve: Establish a mentality that everything can and should be improved and encourage people to ask “How?” questions... More

Arguments for Adopting the Incrementalist Perspective

  1. The future is unknown and unknowable

  2. External forces are too powerful to be controlled by organizations or their managers

  3. Managers cannot enforce adherence to their plans

 

 

Continuous Improvement – the Main Source of Growth for:

  • Industries that reached the market and technological maturity; low rates of market expansion or only replacement demand encourages these firms to restrict innovation to incremental improvements in the same core technology.

  • Organizations that cannot pursue more aggressive venture strategies as they have to follow some restricting bureaucratic rules and regulations.

CIF and Total Quality Management (TQM) – two different perspectives of the same phenomenon

  • The CIF Perspective – the organization itself in all its integrity, full-blown, operating and practicing the total quality management (TQM) approaches

  • The TQM Perspective – the beliefs and practices required of management to bring about and perpetuate a continuous improvement firm (CIF)

Kaizen Contiuous Improvement Firm Top Management Innovation Kaizen Innovation Kaizen Sustainable Competitive Advantage of US and Japanese Firms Continuous Improvement Firm

Main Subjects for Suggestions in Japanese Companies

  • Improvements in machines and processes... More

CIF versus Mass Production (MP) firm

Issues

MP

CIF

Strategic advantage

Large volume of homogenous output

Production flexibility

Workforce

Narrow specialization

Multi-skilled

Output based on

Forecasted demand

Real demand

Productivity success factors

Quality of management; its ability to plan and to direct the implementation of those plans

The ability of the entire work force, not just management, to constantly improve both the product and the processes whereby it is produced

Barriers to Successful CIF

Toyota's 10 Management Principles

Google: 10 Golden Rules

  • Encourage creativity. One of our not-so-secret weapons is our ideas mailing list: a companywide suggestion box where people can post ideas ranging from parking procedures to the next killer app. The software allows for everyone to comment on and rate ideas, permitting the best ideas to percolate to the top... More

 Discover much more!

Free Ten3 Micro-courses

Kaizen and Lean Manufacturing

Quick and Easy Kaizen

Kaizen Mindset

Successful Implementation of Kaizen Strategy: 7 Conditions

Japanese-style Suggestion System

9 Waste Categories and 6 Guidelines of the Canon's Suggestion System

Five Ss at Canon

Lean Production

The Toyota Way: 14 Principles

7 Principles of Toyota Production System (TPS)

Toyota's 10 Management Principles

13 Tips for Transitioning Your Company To a Lean Enterprise

5 Elements of Enabling a Lean Approach

5S

10 Commandments of Improvement

Modern Manager

Management Function vs. Process Focus

How To Lead Creative People

Winning Organization

Balanced Organization: 5 Basic Elements

5 Strategies for Creating a Culture of Questioning

Innovation-friendly Organization

How To Transform Your Business Into an Innovative and Creative Culture

Guiding Principles To Liberate Employees from the Fear of Trying New Things

Innovation Management Policies for Large Corporations

7 Tips for Eliminating Bureaucracy

Business Processes

Enterprise-wide Business Process Management (EBPM)

8 Essential Principles of Enterprise-wide Business Process Management (EBPM)

TPS-Lean Six Sigma – Linking Human Capital to Lean Six Sigma

Using Best Practice: The Trotter Scorecard

Quality Management

Deming's 14 Point Plan for Total Quality Management (TQM)

14 Slogans for TQM at Pentel, Japan

Case Studies

Fidelity Investments: Practicing Kaizen

Canon Production System (CPS)

GE Work-Out

  Ten3 Mini-Courses   Presentation:    View    Download

Synergizing Business Processes  (60 slides)

Synergizing Value Chain  (200 slides)

Kaizen Mindset

  • Not a single day should go by without some kind of improvement being made somewhere in the company... More

Balanced Organization: 5 Basic Elements

Performance Management (Water):

What is Continuous Improvement Firm (CIF)?

 

CIF is a firm continuously improving on customer value due to improvements in productivity initiated by the members of the general work force.

Productivity in CIF is broadly defined to include all facets of product quality as well as output per worker. A basic operating principle of the CIF is that improvements in product quality often produce simultaneous reductions in costs.

The key success factor in this endogenous, incremental and continuous technological and operational change is the organization and management of the firm in such a way that all members are motivated to promote change and are supported in their effort to do so. What is remarkable about the CIF is its ability to operate simultaneously in all innovative arenas: strategy, new products, new technology, new organizational forms, and new customer relationship management.

How To Lead Creative People

By: Max DePree

  • Be wary of incremental changes – they replace creativity and real innovation... More

18 Leadership Lessons from Colin Powell

  • The most important question in performance evaluation becomes not "How well did you perform your job since the last time we met?" but "How much did you change it?".... More

 Case in Point  Canon: Eliminating 9 Wastes

The objectives of Canon Production System (CPS) are to manufacture better quality products at lower cost and deliver them faster.

Canon invited all their employees to suggest ideas for improvement and developed 6 Guidelines for the Suggestion System to make it most effective.  The company developed also a list of 9 wastes to help their employees become problem-conscious, move from operational improvement to systems improvement, and recognize the need for self-development... More

 Case in Point  14 TQM Slogans at Pentel

Pentel is a Japanese firm manufacturing stationary products. The following is a list of 14 Pentel's slogans for explaining Total Quality Management (TQM) and Quick and Easy Kaizen philosophy to its employees.

  • You are surrounded by mountains of treasures... More

Create a Process-managed Enterprise

Enterprise-wide business process management "integrates everyone and everything once; thereafter, process design, transformation and experience take place freely and continuously, not as a series of infrequent, long-winded, piecemeal and distracting "integration projects" for each new process design. In this way, participants truly learn about the process and the side effects of change on the business."9... More

CIF versus Mass Production (MP) Firms

 

The ultimate competitive goal of the CIF is the ability to produce consumer goods on a custom basis for immediate delivery at costs lower than those featured by standard MP firms.

The key to achieving this flexibility and lower costs lies in the generalization of the work force.

Kaizen

Kaizen means "improvement". Kaizen strategy calls for never-ending efforts for improvement involving everyone in the organization – managers and workers alike... More

Implementation of Kaizen Strategy: 7 Conditions

One of the most difficult aspects of introducing and implementing Kaizen strategy is assuring its continuity.

When a company introduces something new, such as quality circles, or total quality management (TQM), it experiences some initial success, but soon such success disappear like fireworks on summer night and after a while nothing is left, and management keeps looking for a new flavor of the month.

This if because the company lacks the first three most important conditions for the successful introduction and implementation of Kaizen strategy... More

Quick and Easy Kaizen

Quick and easy Kaizen helps eliminate or reduce wastes, promotes personal growth of employees and the company, provides guidance for employees, and serves as a barometer of leadership. Each kaizen may be small, but the cumulative effect is tremendous.

The quick and easy kaizen process works as follows:

  1. The employee notices a problem or an opportunity for improvement... More

Three Stages of the Suggestion System

1. Encouragement. In the first stage, management should make every effort to help the workers provide suggestions, no matter how primitive, for the betterment of the worker's job and the workshop. This will help the workers look at the way they are doing their jobs... More

STRIDES Problem Solving Model

The STRIDES model was developed by the Quality Support Council of Fidelity Investments. This problem solving model provides employees in every part of the corporation with a common language and process for implementing Kaizen – a strategy of continuous improvement. As stated in Fidelity's Models for Quality Improvement, STRIDES is the approach to use "where the problem is more complex."... More

Eliminating Bureaucracy

Bureaucracy makes work and creates climate in which the customer comes third – well after the management and the company's other employees.

How much of your energy is expended on purely internal activities? if you spend less than 20% of your energy on external customers, than bureaucracy has taken hold... More

Lean Manufacturing and Six Sigma

Lean manufacturing, supplemented by Six Sigma principles, can help your company attain the goal of continuous improvement – but only when embraced as a core corporate philosophy and rooted in the corporate culture. Management slogans often boil down to little more than platitudes in slick consultancy packaging. But some corporate lingo stands for more than a passing fad.10 "Lean manufacturing", a shorthand for a commitment to eliminating waste, simplifying procedures and speeding up production, is one such concept.

Six Sigma, the quality-assurance principles that are often integrated with lean production and  enterprise-wide process management efforts, is another. The principles and techniques that the two terms encompass deliver impressive bottom-line results in industrial manufacturing.

13 Tips for Transitioning Your Company To a Lean Enterprise

  • Start with value stream pilots to demonstrate lean as a system and provide a "go see model"... More

The Toyota Way: 14 Principles

5S

The 5S Program defines the steps that are used to make all work spaces efficient and productive, help people share work stations, reduce time looking for needed tools and improve the work environment... More

TPS-Lean Six Sigma

TPS-Lean Six Sigma is like a ‘turbo-charged’ Lean Six Sigma program.

TPS-Lean Six Sigma is a revolutionary, holistic concept. It actively has human capital embedded in Lean Six Sigma in a manner that not only stimulates commitment, integrity, work-life balance, passion, enjoyment at work and employee engagement but also stimulates individual and team learning in order to develop a motivated workforce and sustainable performance improvement and quality enhancement for the organization... More

Be the Best Possible

10 Tips by Ten3 NZ Ltd.

  • Good enough seldom is.  Organisations that are continually productive and profitable incessantly strive for quality and excellence.  Acknowledging that your customers are not prepared to accept an attitude of "that's good enough," how does your organisation's quality standards rate as against its competitors?  How do your own personal levels of excellence and quality rate against your current and potential competitors in the employment market?  If you don't know the answer/s to these questions, then resolve to find them out immediately.  The longer you delay, the larger the gap may be growing between you and your competition!... More

 

 Discover much more in the FULL VERSION of e-Coach

Key Features of the CIF...

Eight Best Practices of Successful Companies...

Continuous Improvement as a Mindset...

Three Questions To Be Systematically Asked by Everyone in CIF...

Process-managed Enterprise...

BPMS: Business Process Management System...

Process Thinking...

Systems Thinking...

Systematic Thinking...

Get Employees Involved...

Leverage Your Service-Profit Chain...

Reward System...

Importance of Proper Motivation...

Inspiring People...

Energizing People...

Use 80/20 Analysis to Pinpoint Improvement Areas...

Real Time Business Development...

Incremental Innovation vs. Radical Innovation...

Idea Management...

Letting the Best Idea Win...

 Case Study  Dell Computer Corporation...

 Case Study  "Great Game of Business"...

 Case Study  Toyota...

 Case Study  GE Work-Out...

 Case Study  Amazon.com...

 Case Study  Avis...

 

 

 

 

KAIZEN (25 slides by Superfactory Excellence Program)
What is Kaizen - Implementation Steps - Kaizen Blitz - Roadblocks

    US$40     See sample slides BUY NOW!

 

 

Bibliography:

  1. "Competitive Manufacturing Management", John M. Nicholas

  2. "The 80/20 Principle", Richard Koch

  3. "Wholesale Changes", Carol Casper

  4. "The Basics of Leadership", Merlin Ricklefs

  5. "Six Sigma", Mikel Harry and Richard Schroeder

  6. "Direct from Dell", Michael Dell with Catherine Fredman

  7. "TQM - Creating a Continuously Improving Organisation", W.E. Cole and J.W. Mogab

  8. "Making a Difference", Bruce Nixon

  9. "Business Process Management", Howard Smith and Peter Fingar

  10. "The Lean Journey," White Paper by Oracle Corporation, 2004

  11. "Beyond Process Maturity to Process Competence," Andrew Spanyi

  12. "Kaizen: The Key To Japan's Competitive Success," Masaaki Imai

  13. "Gemba Kaizen: A Commonsense, Low-Cost Approach to Management," Masaaki Imai

  14. "Lean Manufacturing That Works", Bill Carreira

  15. "Toyota Production System," Taiichi Ohno

Superfactory Excellence Program
Best practices enabling lean manufacturing excellence

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Kaizen Blitz

DVD by Association of Manufacturing Excellence (AME), USA

An AME Kaizen Blitz SM joins process experts from within host companies and participants from the outside. The team is trained to apply the AME Kaizen Blitz SM tools and is empowered to tackle a clearly defined problem. These "Learning by Doing" results are spectacular!   US$60  ► BUY NOW!

 

  Lean Manufacturing Overview

254 slides by Superfactory

Lean Manufacturing - 5S - Visual Controls - Kaizen - Value Streams - Pull - Mistake Proofing - Quick Changeover - Six Sigma - Theory of Constraints

US$80 ►  See sample slides ►  BUY NOW!

 

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Inventor, Author & Founder – Vadim Kotelnikov

© Vadim Kotelnikov, GIVIS