How do you develop continuous improvement skills in your manufacturing team?

Involve your team when creating goals. Ask for their input. This will ensure they believe in the goals and ultimately achieve them.

In my experience, metrics should be reviewed in a regular basis with the team in the bottom line, we need to engage people to understand goals & metrics to be part of improving efforts thus allowing us to show them results obtained step by step.

We need to think outside the box and think of ways we can do things better and also offer incentives for employee suggestions that save money when implemented.

A Continuous Improvement Team should involve all relevant parties: manufacturing operators, research technicians, engineers and process development personnel. Goals should be clearly defined, time-scaled and progress measured against relevant criteria.

Continuous Improvement thrives when it's rooted in practical application and real engagement. The key is having a CI leader with both technical expertise and a deep understanding of the organizational culture. Success comes from involving team members at all levels, creating a hands-on learning environment where they can apply tools directly to their work. This approach fosters ownership and lasting change. While theoretical training has its place, the real value is in practice, collaboration, and continuous development. Empower your people to take part in the journey and watch skills and results grow together. #ContinuousImprovement #Leadership #OperationalExcellence

One way to make the PDCA more effective is to include it in each task sheet, project sheet, or similar project monitoring tool. We had configured project and task sheets in Excel that included a 4-choice dropdown menu where we could associate the appropriate PDCA phase to the task. This greatly improved the learning curve because linking each task to one of the 4 PDCA steps helped integrate the model in our every day activities. Those project and task sheets were also displayed on our dashboards for everyone to see, increasing its acceptance and contributing to organizational learning.

In my experience it is important to have the right people in the room. These can be process experts such as employees using the process and customers (internal or external) Involving the stakeholder in the process will ensure success.

I agree, in the act step, it would be really important to document “lessons learned” to contribute to other systems or processes in terms of the results obtained every cycle.

Select a model that works for the team. Agree on that model and run with it. Keep using this model until it becomes second nature and is part of the culture of the organisation.

In my experience, it is also helpful to solve problems during the Kaizen event. Based on the method defined, put actions in place to get issues resolved, don’t pursue perfection.

When running a factory that makes a variety of parts in a variety of materials, the opportunities for things to go wrong are endless. Your best partner in solving these issues is your operators, as they handle the products. Build an inspection culture, where they take pride in what they have made by ensuring it's perfect from the beginning, or part of the excellence process by reporting when something is less than perfect, no matter how small the imperfection is. Every day is a teaching experience when every employee in your factory is also an inspector.

Share your stories with your team and help them understand why continual improvement is important. Build relationships and encourage others to share their stories.

Ensure that ideas are shared and celebrated to engage more people to follow up the same path. Success should be public to create a mindset of continuous improvement.

Take time to understand the gaps in experience and what your team requires to become successful. Using the SWOT model is one way you can identify a training strategy for your team. Team IDPs are also useful for engaging employees in their development.

Actually, when it comes to this part, I would say the following: -Train and empower yourself first (fill the gaps in knowledge, prepare yourself), then -Train and empower your team. In other words, do the PDCA cycle on your own, then do it with your team.

It is very important to ensure that people think, understand and keep processes moving forward. There should be enough time to train, learn and practice to improve operation performance. There should be a culture of learning within the organization providing critical knowledge.

Understanding the relevant technology is crucial for continuous improvement in teams. By ensuring that your team members have a solid understanding of the technology they work with, you’re equipping them to make informed decisions, implement best practices, and contribute effectively to the team’s success.

Development of continuous improvement skills in your team (strategy plan first): 1. Train and empower yourself first (fill the gaps in knowledge, prepare yourself) 2. Study your organisation and find out if continuous improvement is recognised across all levels: -Top management -Middle management (for example you) -Lower management (your team) -Frontline workers 3. Do the PDCA cycle (recognise weak links in your chain, including Top management) 4. Comunicate problem with the Top management (if you need any support) and make Plan for improvement Operation plan: 5. Train and empower your team Note (trainings/operation plan): Study PDCA, Kaizen, Kanban, 5S, SMART, Poka-yoke, Gemba walks, Value stream mapping, etc.