Most organisations are eager to claim that their business and teams exhibit an effective Continuous Improvement Culture.  This eagerness is understandable as a Continuous Improvement (CI) capability is rightly recognised as a strategic advantage - an ability to maintain a competitive edge over and above the possession of assets or a particular market position.  However, in all too many cases the claims of organisations are based on a sporadic procession of improvements implemented by a group of relatively few experts.  These improvements are often insufficient to generate a real strategic advantage.   In reality, this level of shortfall is because such cultural change is difficult to achieve.  And it is of course this difficulty that makes the advantage all the greater for those companies that do achieve it.  

oee has successfully supported companies in finance and manufacturing sectors in developing an effective CI culture.   Read how one company reaped significant ongoing benefits through the implementation of CI.

The oee approach for achieving an effective CI culture includes:

1. Coaching Leadership. Positive culture change only occurs through a consistent management approach and leadership of teams over the medium term.  This means that the management team need to understand and buy-in into the approach.
2. People Involvement.  Once people feel the buzz of working together in teams to change their working environment for the better there is an opportunity to build momentum towards continuous improvement.  
3. Infrastructure. To achieve sustainability, a working infrastructure needs to be put in place to support.  This infrastructure includes e.g.  meaningful measures, prioritisation of local and cross-functional projects, deployment of CI tools and a formal method of managing ideas.
4. Implementation. This is key to success. oee delivers an implementation strategy that engages the front line teams whilst continuing to retain the confidence of the senior team throughout rollout.

Benefits
Initial cost, quality and lead time benefits of 20% are not unusual with ongoing year on year cost benefits of to 10%.  Front line engagement means that the company has an automatic method of quickly reacting to changing market conditions.  Innovation and improved customer experience has a positive impact on sales