Continuous Improvement is the prevalent effort to improve services, products and processes by making incremental improvements within a business. This process must be a continual so that the opportunities for development can be highlighted, measured and evaluated

• Leadership that walks the talk- Leaders must exhibit certain distinct behaviors that not only describe support for the initiative but also the behavioral pattern that they wish all employees to emulate. 

• A major focus on “fire prevention” rather than “firefighting”- The problems that require fixing are generating a series of “fires” that on a constant basis distract managers from solving the main cause of their problems.

• Constancy of purpose- Successful continuous improvement programs includes that improvement is not only a management initiative but also a long-term practice that needs to incorporate everything an organization does.

• Shift from short term to long term mind-set- The company needs to have at look at the long-term result of the work it is doing.

Read more at:

http://www.processexcellencenetwork.com/innovation/articles/continuous-improvement-4-factors-that-make-a-conti/

Continuous Improvement includes different methodologies and disciplines  including Business Process Management, Performance Management,  Compliance, Quality Management, Lean, Six Sigma and more. In spite of all the different terms,  methods and techniques  available, there are commonalities between these different approaches -all of them seek to continuously improve business processes to improve business results. But often companies are their own worst enemies when it comes to process improvement. Here are the main barriers to continuous improvement:

• Difficult to foster collaboration among multiple stakeholders

• Difficult to recognise which processes to prioritize improvement efforts on

• tooling of ill-suited Process Management

        Process Management tooling is inadequate

        Process Management tooling is too complicated

• Governing change to meet compliance obligations

• Lack of employee engagement

Read more at: 

http://www.processexcellencenetwork.com/lean-six-sigma-business-transformation/articles/five-barriers-to-continuous-improvement-vote-for-t/

5S is a methodology used initially to organize workplaces to be more efficient and streamlined thereby consistently striving for more outputs, lower costs and less waste. So in essence, as this is what Continuous Improvement is mostly about, 5S is one of the commonly used Continuous Improvement tools. 5S is widely believed to have originated or least initially widely used in Japan and the term 5S is derived from 5 Japanese words- seiri, seiton, seiso, seiketsu and shitsuke which loosely translated into English stand for: sort, simplify, shine, standardize and sustain. The principle activities taking place at each of the stages are: Sort - All unnecessary items, parts, files, supplies are removed from the area

Simplify – (or Set in Order) – A place is created for everything and everything is stored in its place

Shine – (Sweep) – Clean up the area

Standardize – Apply the same standard throughout (to other similar areas)

Sustain – Maintain the new standard and avoid slipping back to old habits

To know about practical recommendations to make 5S a key part of the Continuous Improvement machinery, regardless of the type of business visit:http://smallbizkaizen.com/index.php/2010/08/5s-business-benefit

Continually changing markets affect all industries; sooner or later the world will move on. Any product or service will eventually become obsolete if it is not refined to keep up with these ever-changing market demands. Staying still is not an option. A good Continuous Improvement process will deliver rapid evolution into any business. If one can improve faster than their competitors then they will be able to secure more of the market in future. The four basic requirements needed to develop a flourishing Continuous Improvement culture are stating your intention to improve, harvesting opportunity ideas i.e. initiating a continual improvement process, empowering the workforce i.e. deploying a continuous improvement culture, which is easy where the staffs are empowered to improve and measuring the improvement culture by the number of identified success and celebrating the success. To know more about these four requirements go to:

http://adaptivebms.com/How_to_establish_a_Continuous_Improvement_Process/

Robust demand for continuous improvement talent remains concentrated on lean skill sets, but Six Sigma shows renewed strength in a new study. A survey conducted by the Avery Point Group on 7097 internet job postings revealed the changing demands landscape for lean and Six Sigma talent.

To read more, visit the following link:

http://www.industryweek.com/lean-six-sigma/demand-six-sigma-talent-staging-comeback