Question

1. If your team was given the task of identifying improvements needed in your organization, which of the 16 improvement strategies would you select to find them? Why do you think these strategies are effective in identifying improvement opportunities?

Answer 1

Answer: Following are the 16 improvement strategies we would like to identify for our organization are as below

1. Lead time reduction strategy in the organization
2. Flow production strategy in the organization
3. Strategy on use of group technologies for the organization
4. Strategy on leveling the production in the organization
5. Strategy to synchronize the production/ operations
6. Strategy to explore overlapped / parallel production
7. Strategy to adapt flexible schedules for production management
8. Strategy to explore pull control in production system.
9. Strategy to use visual controls in the production system of the organization
10. Strategy to have stockless production approaches.
11. Strategy to have Jidoka process for defect management
12. Strategy to have reduced set up time
13. Strategy to have in process control approach.
14. Strategy for quality improvements.
15. Strategy to have supplier partnerships
16. Strategies for total productive maintenance
17. Strategies for innovation and creativity

These strategies are effective in identifying the improvement opportunities for the organization, because these strategies have covered all the key factors of the organization which impact the production or operations of the organization. Thus all the major areas of the organization operation or production is covered like lead time, quality, synchronization, maintenance, suppliers, setup times, schedules, batch/ lot sizes, inventory etc. Thus if we review and analyze these important factor of the organization operations, then we will be able to identify the improvement opportunities of the organization which can bring large improvements for the organization in terms of improvement in efficiency and effectiveness with large cost savings and increase in business revenues.