Process improvement culture

Process improvement culture and influencing company culture for continuous improvement

A Process improvement culture within an organization is said to be present when the whole workforce from factory operators and customer service staff to senior management and executives truly incorporate continuous process improvement within their day to day business operations.
Continuous process improvement in this sense refers to there always being a strategy or initiatives from staff to pursue improvements in their work area regarding plant/machinery, process and tasks they do on a daily basis. This entails ownership of their work area and a true desire to get involved with their peers and stakeholders to improve their work area not only for the business but to deliver better results to the organization’s customers and their satisfaction.

Fostering a continuous improvement culture

The following points can help as a manager or business owner to foster a continuous improvement culture:

-Educate staff on continuous improvement and lean manufacturing
-Always have a focus area of improvement and document issues, actions, results and sustaining
-Reward effort and initiative that improves efficiencies and deliver customer value
-Support the generation of new ideas and reward these initiatives
-Track key process and business KPI’s that allow staff to monitor results of continuous improvement activities
-Try to implement a performance based pay component into staff wages and salaries