Process Improvement Essentials

Chapter 4. Sustaining Process Improvement

GIVEN SOME GOOD PEOPLE, THE RIGHT RESOURCES, AND TIME, YOU CAN PROBABLY BUILD A PRETTY good quality program. If you follow some of the recommendations and guidelines discussed in the last chapter, chances are you’ll create a program built to add real value to your business, and one that fits well with your business to boot.

But in the field of process improvement, it’s important to understand that building the program is just the beginning. When the program is complete, you’ve achieved a major milestone. And by all rights you should be proud. But the real work is not finished. It’s only about to begin. If you’ve designed your process program the right way, then you’ve designed it to successfully improve your business. And as is true with most significant factors in the business world, the measure of that improvement—its degree of success—takes time. The term continuous process improvement holds the key. The trick to the success of your program will not come from merely building something good, it will come from using it: using it over time, refining it, making it better and better, and allowing it to become a permanent part of your organization’s business approach.

The key to successful process improvement is sustaining process improvement.

Most quality programs get through their design and construction phases pretty well. Where they begin to falter is typically in the first six months of implementation. There are some general reasons why ...