Developing and sustaining employee involvement in continuous improvement

Survey data from the Continuous Improvement Research for Competitive Advantage (CIRCA) project suggests that 65% of companies consider continuous improvement (CI) to be of strategic importance, and around 50% have instituted some form of systematic programme to apply these concepts. A further 19% claim to have a widespread and sustained process of CI in operation, and of those firms using CI 89% claim it has had an impact on productivity, quality, delivery performance or some combination of these. But making CI happen is easier said than done. It has become clear that introducing and embedding the new behaviour patterns which make up CI is something which takes time and effort, and there is no magic bullet which will achieve this overnight. Mastering CI involves an extended learning process, from acquiring basic competence up to high performance which contributes real strategic advantage. The CIRCA project at the University of Brighton has developed a model identifying key stages in this learning process. In essence the model describes the growth path of CI from start-up through to full maturity. The early stages of development are all about acquiring the basic habits of CI-learning to find and solve problems systematically, using simple tools to help the process, and capturing some of the benefits in new ways of working. Having mastered the basics the next stage involves focusing this problem-solving capability on suitable targets which make a difference to the business, and learning to monitor and measure progress towards meeting those targets