Coordinate improvement teams across the organisation

When your Improvement Program is picking up steam, you'll notice that there are way more teams, small and large projects and all kinds of Problem Solving efforts than you will be able to coordinate from a central level. Luckily, you won't have to: coordinate the direction, then train and trust your managers to specialists to manage improvement efforts on their level.
This is sort of a part two to my previous video - we dive deeper into how you can coordinate Improvement Teams, Kaizen Events, DMAIC's and Autonomous Maintenance throughout your operation. We've discussed the idea of going through the Control, Improve and Visioning loops at each management level - the logical extension is that each level also has their own Improvement Teams to pick and manage.
You might call these improvement efforts by different names at different management levels, but the main thing to watch is who provides the resources and whose sphere of responsibilities most needs the results.
For example: most projects by a Production Support Specialist, who works on all kinds of line optimisations and reports directly to the Production Manager, should be managed by that Production Manager (or maybe by that manager's main meeting, i.e. the daily/weekly department meeting). From time to time, that Specialist will be freed up to lead a 5-man cross departmental team to make a bigger improvement, backed by site resources - that project will be managed from the Site Management team. This last project is also the more likely to be guided and coordinated by the site's CI team.
Make sure each management level knows what the organisation above and around them wants to achieve, determine their KPI targets, and you won't need to coordinate each individual improvement team (as long as that department is reaching their target, of course).
Now, when you're still building up the program and there's not that much experience in the lower organisational levels to pick, run and control projects; you'll be coordinating those Improvement Teams directly, but that's more of a pilot situation, not the final CI organisation you should be aiming for.
#continuousimprovement #projectmanagement #performancemanagement
• Coordinate improvement...
00:00 Introduction to Coordination
01:13 Aligning Goals Strategically
03:18 Cascading Targets Down the Line
05:23 Granting Departments Autonomy
07:27 Managing Improvement Levels
10:29 Balancing CI Department Oversight
12:53 Setting Control Levels

[@edsonsamuel7287]

Hi Tom, Once again a very insightful video. I truly appreciate the knowledge and experience that you are sharing, and as a Mechanical Engineer with a passion for CI I find it invaluable. I have a question: is the implementation of CI different in a power plant compared to any other production plant(for example cars, pens, etc.), since the main activity there is maintenance? And if so, do you have any recommendations on the best implementation approach? Thank you and keep up the good work Tom!

[@TomMentink]

Thanks for the kind feedback, hope you enjoy many more of my videos. Since you’re not really producing a product, quality and product/service specifications will be less important (although I can imagine OTIF is really important and the market expects immediate reactions to demand changes 😅). That means you use the Planned Maintenance side of CI much more: deeply get to know your machinery, how wear and tear affects parts and make preventive maintenance plans accordingly. Many of your larger spare parts are ridiculously expensive, and also have very long leads times when ordered new, so you benefit even more from conditions based maintenance than most other industries. Of course the basics will work for you just as for any other: organise workplaces for optimal efficiency, safety and comfort with proper 5S, control standards on the 4 M’s, foster a Kaizen mindset of making and maintaining small improvements every day.

[@TomMentink]

Thanks for the kind feedback, hope you enjoy many more of my videos. Since you’re not really producing a product, quality and product/service specifications will be less important (although I can imagine OTIF is really important and the market expects immediate reactions to demand changes 😅). That means you use the Planned Maintenance side of CI much more: deeply get to know your machinery, how wear and tear affects parts and make preventive maintenance plans accordingly. Many of your larger spare parts are ridiculously expensive, and also have very long leads times when ordered new, so you benefit even more from conditions based maintenance than most other industries. Of course the basics will work for you just as for any other: organise workplaces for optimal efficiency, safety and comfort with proper 5S, control standards on the 4 M’s, foster a Kaizen mindset of making and maintaining small improvements every day.