Continuous Improvement Strategies for Great Results

This assignment delves into the world of continuous improvement, exploring various strategies and techniques such as Six Sigma, Total Quality Management (TQM), performance management, knowledge management, and the Plan-Do-Check-Act (PDCA) cycle. It discusses the importance of these methods in achieving great results and improving employee well-being. The assignment also touches on the relationships between shop floor management and continuous improvement, as well as the effects of Lean duration on job performance in Lean production.

Business Environment

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
TASK 1............................................................................................................................................1
TASK A-1........................................................................................................................................1
A1.1 Several benefits of the execution of the continuous improvement (CI) process in the
organisational.........................................................................................................................1
A1.2 Continuous improvement models and best model for the E-OfficeWorx.....................2
A1.3 Strategies that help in implementation of the continuous improvement.......................6
A1.4 Different continuous improvement tool that can be used in continuous improvement
system.....................................................................................................................................9
A1.5 Involvement of staff in continuous improvement........................................................12
A1.6 Strategies that helps in communicating continuous improvement in the organisation.12
A1.7 Monitoring and coaching to find employees are able to implement the CI................12
A1.8 Strategy that help to sustain continuous development. ...............................................12
TASK A-2......................................................................................................................................12
A2.1 Continuous improvement policy for............................................................................12
TASK A-3 .....................................................................................................................................13
A3.1 Development of continuous improvement tools..........................................................13
TASK B.........................................................................................................................................15
Presentation..........................................................................................................................15
TASK 2..........................................................................................................................................15
2.1 Customer survey related to continuous improvement....................................................15
CONCLUSION .............................................................................................................................17
REFERENCES..............................................................................................................................18

INTRODUCTION
Continuous improvement is the process by which organisation adopt different strategies and
tools which help them to adopt the change according to the internal as well as external environment.
E-OfficeWorx which supplies furniture, stationary to the small and large office environment, they
need to make improvement in supply chain and distribution channel which helps them to gain
competitive advantage. The report will include different strategies, tools, techniques and model
which help them to implement continuous improvement in the organisation.
TASK 1
TASK A-1
A1.1 Several benefits of the execution of the continuous improvement (CI) process in the
organisational.
It is the process of improving the business, enhance their workplace, make changes in the
execution of work so that they can able to serve different benefits to the company. The important
aspect of the continuous improvement is people in and out of the organisational (Milner and
Savage, 2016). Motivated, employed, effective and educated who achieve the company's goal,
employees are the main ingredient for the CI environment. Thus, CI provides various benefits to the
organisational and that are as follows:
 Reduce errors: it helps the organisational to reduce the occurrence of the error what have
been taken place earlier. The company previously make defects products and create lots of
errors while doing the production process which was costly for them. The companies do
production in the mass which leads to ignorance in the efficiency and they can't able to
produce quality goods and services (Reid and Bassa, 2017). While implementing continuous
improvement in the organisational they can able to find the all the sources for error and can
able to fix them properly.
 Enhancement in adaptability: The concept of continuous improvement help the
organisational to better equipped so that they can able to adopt the changes that have been
taking place in the daily life such as change in the internal as well as external factors. The
factors may include technology, government regulations, political factors, competitors price
and products etc. The organisation need to make changes according to the market forces so
that they can able to sustain, for that they need to adopt the continuous improvement.
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 Increase in the productivity: Continuous improvement help the organisation to make theor
employees more effective and efficient in the working, they can able to complete their task
on time with low errors, if the defects are less they will not require more time to correct the
defects. This help them to work on time in the effective and efficient manner which will
leads to increase their production with the less time and efforts (Tiep, and Carter, 2017).
 Enhance the morale of the employees and supervisor: Continuous improvement is the
process of improving the company as a whole, after implementation of the CI, the
organisation will not blame employees for the inefficiency. The major reason while
implementing the CI is improving the morale of the employees in the organisation which
leads to reduce in the turnover as they fell that they are improving and growing with the
company.
 Improve customer satisfaction and retention: Implementation of the CI to the
organisation will lead to improve the productivity and the quality goods are produced which
help the organisation to satisfy the needs and wants of the customer. If the errors are less
than they can able to fulfil the customers orders on time and which will enhance the client's
satisfaction and able to retained them for the future (First and Leibenluft, 2017).
A1.2 Continuous improvement models and best model for the E-OfficeWorx
There are four stage in the continuous improvement that is plan-do-check-act. The
organisation need to identify the opportunities where they need to change, implement the change in
the small parts, analyse the impact of change on the organisation and outsiders such as customers,
suppliers etc. and then find out that change is successful or the purpose for change have been
achieved or not (Tiep and Murray, 2016). There are various models by which CI can be
implemented, that are as follows:
Six sigma:
Six Sigma is the data driven disciplined method and approach which help the organisation to
remove defects and errors in the production, transformation process which serve goods and services
to the consumer in order to satisfy their needs. It helps the company to enhance the customer
experience towards the quality goods and services and different benefits. The organisation
implements this model to reduce their cost of manufacturing and promoting the product and able to
build the better leaders for the venture. The definition of the six sigma is manufacturing those goods
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and services which is outside the customer satisfaction and specification (Milner and Savage, 2016).
The major motive of implementing the six sigma in the firm that is to improve the process of
manufacturing and reduce in variation through different six sigma projects.
There is six steps in the six sigma which start with the defining and ends with approve, the
stages are as follows:
 Define: In the first stage of six sigma, organisation find what is the problem and fond out
how the problem has arises so that they can able to take corrective action to reduce the
defects and solve the problem. The company need to prepare the goal statement in which all
the goals of them is defined. The process map is developed by the venture so that they can
able to follow that route. At last they need to identify the needs and wants of the customer
so that they can able satisfy them.
 Measure: Process is decided in the previously step, now the company need to determine
how the current process is performing. The causes of the problem is find out in this stage.
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Illustration 1: Six Sigma
(Source: Six Sigma, 2016)

To solve the problem, organisation need to information and the data plan is made in this
stage and ensuring that the data is reliable or not?
 Analyse: In this stage all the processes are closely and detailed are examined and all the
information is displayed visually (Reid and Bassa, 2017). The main part of this stage is
brainstorming where all the decision are taken by full analyse.
 Control: In this process, organisation continuously improve the process with the help of lean
principle and make sure that all the processes is monitored and managed properly by the
supervisor. The main objective of this stage is applying new knowledge to the process and
share the success as well as improve the failure.
 Improve: In the previous stage the process is implemented to the organisation so that they
can able to adopt the change. In this the organisation monitor the execution of the process
and find out the problems. They try to improve the process by modifying them in order to
remove the problem (Tiep, and Carter, 2017).
Total quality management
It is the model which was originated in the 1950's and have become popular in the 1980's. It
is the process of describing the attitude, culture of the company that is producing goods and
services in order to satisfy the requirements and wants of the customer (First and Leibenluft, 2017).
The culture need the quality in all the aspects of the organisation's operation and all the process is
being done at the right time which helps to reduce wastage and defects in all the activities.
Total quality management is not well recognised and the management and continuous improvement
model and also acceptable in the service and public sector enterprise. Total quality management
includes different activities, that are as follows:
 Helps in decrease in the development cycle.
 Proper implementation of the Just in time technique and flow manufacturing.
 Helps in minimising the cost of products and services.
 It provides guidance to the system to provide improvement in the organisation.
 The main motive of TQM is to satisfy the customer needs and wants by serving them quality
goods and services.
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 Enhance the employee empowerment and involvement.
 Helps on focusing on the plans and processes.
 Proper adoption to the changes.
Illustration 2: TQM
(Source: 6 C's of TQM, 2016)
There are 6 C's in TQM which help the organisation to fulfil these activities, that are as
follows:
 Culture: It includes the environment of the organisation where changes take place regularly
so total quality management helps the company to mould the culture according the internal
as well as external environment.
 Commitment: The organisation must implement the TQM so that quality improvement
become part of the everyday life of the employees (Tiep and Murray, 2016). The individual
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which is working in the company can able to provide the clear commitment to the customers
and all the members of the venture.
 Continuous improvement: TQM includes all the processes and plans which need
improvement according to the needs and wants of the customer. They need to implement
continuous improvement so that they can able to adopt the changes and will reduce the
waste in order to improve the quality of products and services.
 Co-operation: The organisation need to involve all the members of the organisation
whether it is at lower level or at top level. Involvement will bring need ideas to improve the
quality of the products which helps to enhance the morale of employees.
 Customer oriented: The activities which every organisation need to continue is for the
customer, clients are the god for every firm (Milner and Savage, 2016). They need to keep
need and wants of the customer so that they can satisfy the needs and wants of the customer.
Clients needs quality products and services so the venture should adopt the TQM.
TQM will be the best model for the company like E-OfficeWorx. The company serve in the
supply of different stationary, business equipment, computer and furniture to the small as well as
large offices including home office. TQM will be effective model for the E-OfficeWorx because
they focus on the needs and wants of the consumer so the company is consumer oriented. Their
main motive is to serve different services with the quality products so they need to update their
quality in order to gain competitive advantage. They need to reduce the cost of distribution which
can de done by reducing the waste and errors. Their motive is to fulfil the needs of clients on time
so just in time helps them to do such activities
A1.3 Strategies that help in implementation of the continuous improvement
There are different strategies that have been adopted by the organisation in order to improve
the quality of the products and services and serve the best goods to the customer in order to satisfy
their needs, that are as follows:
Performance management
It is the process by which employees, supervisor and managers plan to work together,
review and monitor the work of employees so that they can able to achieve the organisation
objective. It is the way by which company continuously set the objective, finding and selecting
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processes and providing continuous development and feedback so that they can able to ensure that
employees are performing in the standard way.
Illustration 3: Performance management
(Source: Stages of performance management,2017)
There are three stages in the performance management that are plan, monitor and review and
evaluate.
Plan: In this stage all the managers and employees have responsible for different purpose that are as
follows:
 Proper review of the job description which helps to ensure that all the task are distributed to
the eligible candidate (Reid and Bassa, 2017).
 Making link between the job description and roles and objective of the organisation.
 Develop the work plan according to the employee capability and roles of the employees.
 The company need to identify the key areas where the performance should be enhanced.
 Finding out the training objective of the employee
 Identify the career development of the workers.
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Monitor: To make the performance management system effective, company need to analyse the
performance of the employees at the continuous basis.
 Top level management need to identify the progress of the employee on the basis of their
performance.
 Finding out the hurdles that may come between the monitoring the performance of the
employee and corrective measure should be taken to remove barriers.
 Identify the need of changes that are required to enhance the performance of employees.
Review: The organisation need to review the working of workers to find out the opportunities that
they can able to grab with the better performance of the employee. In this stage the summary of the
employee performance are done (Tiep, and Carter, 2017). The stage involves the comparison of
standard performance and actual to find that employee are able to work according the standard.
Knowledge management
Illustration 4: Knowledge management
(Source: Knowledge management, 2016)
Knowledge management is the process of giving right knowledge to the right individual at
the right time, it is the systematic managing the company's knowledge so that they can able to
create value and able to meet the strategic and tactical requirements. It includes processes, system,
initiatives and strategies that lead to sustain in the market and increase the assessment, refinement,
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storage and sharing. It is directly linked with the venture strategies and goal and it done so that
company can able to create value for them. It has various dimensions that are:
 Strategy: The knowledge management is linked with the organisation strategies, their main
objective is to create, share and manage the knowledge that helps them to meet the their
objectives.
 Firm's culture: there are different type of people in the company who have different
knowledge of the various aspects, while communicating with each other they can able to
share that data to each other which will enhance the individual knowledge in the
organisation (First and Leibenluft, 2017).
 Company's process: There are various operation and process are taking place in the
venture so that they can able to achieve their goal. While operating in the various activities,
different people can able to access different knowledge.
 Leadership and management: knowledge management need experiences leadership at all
the department and levels. There are various KM roles that a company need to implement so
they need expertise to execute them.
 Technology: The organisation need to perfect knowledge so they can able to implement
tools, system and technology.
 Policies: Company need to make some policies and change them timely which is to
followed by every employees. So, they need perfect knowledge so that they can able to
follow (Tiep, and Carter, 2017).
A1.4 Different continuous improvement tool that can be used in continuous improvement system.
There are various tools that are available to which help the organisation to achieve
continuous improvement, they are as follows:
Root Cause analysis
It is process by which organisation will find out the cause of the problem, quality and
incident. This can be achieve by collecting the data, evaluate the information and then finally they
implement the strategies so that they can able to improvement in the company. There are different
phases included in the root cause analysis, that are as follows:
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 Open phase: In this stage, organisation need to identify the problem and different possible
root causes. The cause and effect diagram have been created in this stage and proper
brainstorming is needed to create diagram. In this process the team find out one to five
causes of the problem which is made in the diagram. The cause can be categorised in the
methods, material, machine, man power and measurement. At the end they create the ideas
for the root cause for those categories.
 Narrow Phase: The stage include reduction of possible cause in the number and select
those which the team want to focus. All the factors are properly analysed in this stage so that
they can able to select the effective model for the continuous improvement.
 Closed phase: The consensus on the root cause is identified in this stage. This includes
validation of the root cause on the base of evidence. The interview is taken from the staff to
find out that they are using measurable information or subjective evidence as well the
interview is taken from the vendors and customer also to find out the same. Various
statistical methods are used such as check sheets and scatter plot diagram which help to
solve the problem.
Plan-do-check-act cycle
Illustration 5: Plan-do-check-act
(Source: Plan-do-check stages, 2017)
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It was developed by the W. Edwards Demming, the approach was made for carrying out
change in the organisation. This approach is consisted of four stages that re plan, do, check and act.
Plan: in this stage company find out the problem or the factor which need improvement. The cause
is being addressed in detail. The flow chart is made which provide guideline to the improvement
and helps to create path which helps to achieve improvement in the different factor (Tiep and
Murray, 2016).
Do- The planning is made and the factor is identified in the previous stage, now the company need
to implement the flow chart which helps to achieve the desired level of improvement. The
organisation need to have new technology and equipment so that they can able to implement the
strategies that they have planned in the previous stage.
Check: The plan have implemented in the previous stage, now the organisation need to monitor all
the activities that are taking place for making the improvement. They validate the changes that have
been taken place, if the issue is not replaced, the organisation need to again the plan-do-check stage.
Act: In the final stage of plan-do-check, they require that once the problem is solved, the company
need to incorporate the improvement into their standard procedure and as they find that the method
is effective then that will be implemented to the other parts of organisation.
Intranet survey
It is the digital tool for the continuous improvement in the organisation. The tool includes
preparation of questionnaire which have question related to the various factors that need
improvement. That questionnaire is then distributed to all the levels and department of the
organisation, further that is filled by the all the members to find which factor need improvement.
This method helps the company to reduce the time and effort to make long analysis.
Feedback form
In this tool the form is created and communicated to all the members which cover all the
aspects, which helps the organisation to take feedback from the employees and managers. They
provide various innovative ideas to do continuous improvement in the organisation.
A1.5 Involvement of staff in continuous improvement.
The staff can be involved by the lean education and well as kaizen approach. This approach
which help the organisation to motivate all the staff to adopt the change which help them to increase
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their efficiency and effectiveness. The leader guide them to provide innovative ways by which
employees can able to enhance their skills and able to involve in decision making of improvement
(Reid and Bassa, 2017).
A1.6 Strategies that helps in communicating continuous improvement in the organisation.
 Communicate all the information of improvement in the clear and consistent way.
 Communication should be simple, fast and direct with less number of interpreters and
filters.
 Energize and inspire the employees.
 Implement user-friendly, personal and human approach to communicate.
 Communicate ideas, information, learning and experience in all the directions.
A1.7 Monitoring and coaching to find employees are able to implement the CI
All organisation implement CI in their environment, after that they need to monitor, without
monitoring they can't able to know that improvement have been established or not by the staff.
There is specific motive behind the change in the company and accordingly they make plans, that
plans are then communicated to the employees. As they work to achieve change, firm need to
monitor that they are able to adopt the change or not? If they are not able to, then they will provide
coaching so that they can able to adopt the improvement.
A1.8 Strategy that help to sustain continuous development.
Organisation need to implement output management which state that company need to adopt six
sigma and quality management which will enhance their output as distribution of goods and service.
This strategy help them sustain continuous improvement in the venture.
TASK A-2
A2.1 Continuous improvement policy for E-OfficeWorx
 Purpose of policy: To encourage continuous improvement in the organisation and ensuring
all the activities are done in effective way to reduce defects.
 Scope of policy: Continuous improvement is implemented on all the processes, supply
chain and delivery of goods.
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 Continuous improvement principles: It includes various principles that are ideas can
come into the minds of employees, improvement made to small units and it successful then
executed to all departments and employees are responsible for continuous improvement.
 Continuous improvement model: Six sigma and Total quality management.
 Continuous improvement implementation: It is implemented on internal audits, survey of
customer satisfaction, management reporting and reviews (Tiep, and Carter, 2017).
 Staff communication and participation: All the members are communicated with the
Intranet survey and mostly top level and middle level are involved in decision making and
lower level are involved to execution.
 Tools for Continuous improvement: Root Cause analysis, Plan-do-check-act cycle,
Intranet survey and Feedback form
 Responsibilities: All the employees are responsible for continuous improvement in the
supply chain and distribution method (First and Leibenluft, 2017).
Global supply chain transparency Act which states that the organisation who deals in the
supply chain need to disclose all the facts related to delivering goods and services to the end user.
The all need to give information related to third party involves in their supply chain such as
manufacturer, transportation agency etc.
TASK A-3
A3.1 Development of continuous improvement tools.
Continuous improvement manager performance form
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TASK B
Presentation
TASK 2
2.1 Customer survey related to continuous improvement
Question 1: Overall satisfaction with the E-Officeworx.
Question 2: Ease of doing business with E-Officeworx.
15
Totally satisfied
somewhat satisfied
Dis-satisfied
Totally dissatisfied
0 5 10 15 20 25 30
26
18
4
1
Column B
Totally satisfied
somewhat satisfied
Dis-satisfied
Totally dissatisfied
0 5 10 15 20 25
20
19
8
2
Column B

Question 3: Customers who said they would purchase products from E-Officeworx again are.
Question 4: Customers who said they would recommend E-Officeworx to others.
16
Totally satisfied
somewhat satisfied
Dis-satisfied
Totally dissatisfied
0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45
42
6
1
0
Column B

CONCLUSION
It can be summarised from the above report that organisation need continuous improvement
to sustain in the market and between the competitors. The report includes different tools that helps
them to adopt improvement such as plan-do-check and Intranet forms. Different models for
continuous improvement like six sigma and total quality management have been included in the
report. The project states CI is very important for any organisation like E-OfficeWorx, which helps
in reducing errors, improve productivity etc.
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Totally satisfied
somewhat satisfied
Dis-satisfied
Totally dissatisfied
0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40
38
8
3
0
Column B

REFERENCES
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