Continuous improvement in business

19 May 2017 by Sanlam

Kaizen, a Japanese word and philosophy meaning “change for better”, reminds us that incremental and continuous improvement in life and business can and will propel us forward.

This philosophy is powerful, because the implementation thereof is all inclusive, from the business owner(s) to the most junior employee.

The question is straightforward – which small improvements can we (on all levels in the business) identify which can be implemented immediately (meaning on the same day or as soon as possible, with little effort and other resources) which will improve the effectiveness and efficiency of our business operations?

Further investigation on how kaizen is applied in business led me to the so called “continuous quality improvement with the PDCA process”.

P = Plan: Plan business operations, e.g. a manufacturing, packaging, marketing, distribution, sales and client support/after service process – this plan sets the current standard of the work.

D = Do: Implement each plan.

C = Check: Inspect each element for quality assurance. When an error or deficiency occurs, we need to highlight it and move onto the next step = Act.

A = Act: Correct/Improve the error or deficiency and incorporate it into the plan. A new baseline for the plan is vested, which should now be an improvement of the previous version.

By repeating this iterative process we have embarked on a continuous journey of improvement.

There is obviously much more to be learned on the philosophy and implementation of kaizen in a business. By teaching our staff and management this very simple PDCA process, we are gearing our business up for continuous improvement, something which can propel us beyond our competitors and surprise our customers with every interaction they have with our business.

Let us focus our effort on the things we can influence and control and thereby grow our businesses in a very challenging business environment.