Purpose of a Process Improvement Team

Process improvement in any company is difficult at best, and when the tasks for improving processes get assigned to front line managers and supervisors the priority for them will always be to get the job done first and improve things later. The process improvement team helps to alleviate this type of problem and also gives empowerment to more of the people that are actually performing the jobs which typically are under scrutiny.

Benefits

As with any type of team in any company there is only one way that a team can be beneficial to the company and that has to do with support. Most teams fail within the first week of inception due to lack of support. A process improvement team can be extremely beneficial if it has the support of all the departments and the head of the company. Since the team's only focus is to develop and implement improvements, it tends to have a great deal of success in improving everything from production operations to office efficiency and reduction in red tape.

The Team

Typically any team bigger than five or six members usually doesn't make a lot of progress, too many members with their own agendas instead of the task at hand. The team should consist of people that have the best chance to implement whatever is developed with little or no interference. An engineer, a member from the department or operation being looked at, someone who works closely with the department or operation being observed. These folks along with someone who has knowledge of Lean Principles or Six Sigma training would be very helpful to getting things done in an efficient manner.

The Advantage

The biggest advantage to an improvement team is that the team only has one focus during its time together and that is to develop and implement an improvement that will benefit the company and its employees both in cost savings and job benefits. Typically the process improvement team starts with the lowest hanging fruit in an area and as it moves through areas of a department and or company the members of the team rotate in and out as different areas are affected. This allows for the process improvement team to quickly obtain big wins, which result in more efficient processes and lower costs in doing business.

How the Team Works

Most improvement teams follow principles either learned through training within the company or by the company hiring a specialist that has been trained for many months or years in Lean principles and Six Sigma Methods. Once an area for improvement is chosen the scope and purpose of the project is chosen and documented to keep from deviating, the actual improvement project is defined and documented and as many of the root causes of inefficiencies or problems should be identified and documented.

The Purpose

At the end of any experience there is always something learned--positive or not.

The purpose of the team is to implement an improvement in an operation that is either costing more money than it is making or is not producing a quality product consistently. So as the team works on implementing the change in the area a clear action plan must be outlined and documented as well as all the members' assignments and deadlines so the plan can stay on course. The team must also enlist the head of the department being directly affected for any resources and manpower necessary to put the plan or improvement into place. Once the change has been made the job of monitoring the operation also falls back on the team so that both successes and failures can be noted and learned from as new teams are introduced.

References

• Six Sigma: Process improvement teams