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01 Improvement is a business philosophy, as written in American MBA textbooks: The Japanese use the word kaizen to describe the never-ending process of improvement—continuously setting and reaching higher goals. In the United States, TQM, zero defects, and 6σ are used to describe similar efforts. Definition of "KAIZEN" in the 1993 Oxford English Dictionary: A business philosophy. To continuously improve working methods and personnel efficiency. Many domestic business operators and managers are keen to use technological breakthroughs, the latest management ideas or the most innovative production technologies to carry out large-scale revolutionary changes. Although this kind of innovative reform can also bring dramatic, eye-catching, and substantial results, innovation is explosive, risky, and its results are often controversial. Moreover, after all, technological breakthroughs, the latest management ideas or the most novel production technologies are not always available, and some management ideas are not suitable for the current situation of domestic enterprises. For example, 6SIGMA is out of reach for most domestic enterprises. It must be implemented, and the result will be half the result with twice the result, or even failure halfway. Compared with the explosive innovative ideas, many of the effects brought about by improving ideas seem to be insignificant and small effects. But although the pace of improvement is small and step-by-step, over time, it will bring dramatic and significant results. The idea of ​​improvement requires every manager and operator to improve their working methods at a relatively small cost. This approach of using common sense and low-cost improvement techniques can ensure continuous progress in a step-by-step manner. The big results accumulated are enough to pay off in the long run. “"Improvement" is also a low-risk method, because during the improvement process, if something inappropriate is discovered, managers can return to the original working methods at any time without incurring large costs. In fact, many “uniquely Japanese” management, e.g.: TQC, QCC, etc. can be condensed into a noun - "improvement" to express. The core part of Japanese-style TPM management and American-style 6SIGMA management: The TPM project and the 6SIGMA project are actually an improvement project, and good results can be achieved through improvement. 02 Compliance with standards - Passive management thinking Too many compliance requirements will damage the spirit of proactive improvement of the company itself and weaken the work awareness of corporate cadres to actively improve. Many domestic enterprises emphasize compliance with standards. The so-called "standard" is nothing more than international, * * Or the standards and requirements set by superior authorities and industry associations. If these standards or requirements are met, the standards are met. Once the standard is reached, the company will wait for the next standard to be released. If no new standard is released, the company will have no intention to improve management. Once when I was coaching a company, the director of a certain workshop said that I had visited several excellent companies and the on-site management was very good. Seeing the chaotic situation in the workshop under the director's supervision, I asked, since I have visited the on-site management of excellent enterprises, why don't you implement these good management methods in the workshop? The director's answer was: The company's corporate management department has no requirements. We clearly know that there are problems on-site, but do not make improvements because there are no requirements from above. This is the "standard-compliance" mentality formed by many domestic enterprises in the era of planned economy. In today's market economy, because administrative departments will gradually reduce their intervention in enterprises, from * * , the standards and regulations of higher-level authorities will gradually decrease. If companies still retain this idea of ​​"complying with standards", they will undoubtedly face increasingly heavy competitive pressure. The standards and regulations set by superiors are not specific to a certain enterprise or workshop, but are common requirements for many enterprises, such as requiring equipment to be safe and intact. But when it comes to a specific piece of equipment in this enterprise, what is true safety? What is truly intact? A set of equipment has dozens or even hundreds of valves. How to operate it safely? Can it be safe to operate solely on the worker's memory? Many excellent foreign-funded enterprises do not say that their equipment "qualifies". They only emphasize that managers must develop very effective management methods for each piece of equipment (of course, they need to draw on previous experience). Compared with many domestic enterprises that require equipment management to meet standards, the actual management status of on-site equipment is so different that it really makes us feel ashamed. "The awareness of "standards" has resulted in enterprise management without individuality. Each enterprise will uniformly guide its work according to the standards set by superiors. However, due to differences in people, environment, and culture, even the same type of enterprises have different management in actual work. In many domestic enterprises, the idea of ​​reaching standards not only exists in major management decisions of the enterprise, but also in daily management. Many companies have various indicators in the assessment of on-site cadres. For example, the ton consumption indicator (the various materials or energy that are allowed to be consumed to produce one ton of products). As long as the actual consumption value within half a year or one year is within the ton consumption indicator, it is good. If it is outside the ton consumption indicator, it is bad. What is emphasized is the relatively static line of the tonnage consumption indicator. Better than this line means reaching the standard. Don’t care about the changing trend of the entire process: Is it getting better month by month? Or is it getting worse? Or is there no substantial change? This is actually a static management idea. Haier proposes to make a little progress every day. This is a dynamic management idea. It is not only compared with the ton consumption indicator line, but more importantly, compared with history.: Compare to last year, compare to last month, compare to yesterday! In terms of dynamic management, excellent manufacturing companies are almost all like this. In addition, when the ton consumption indicator line is emphasized, managers at all levels will bargain and try to lower this line. And if the focus is on the dynamic management thinking of improvement, managers at all levels will be committed to continuous improvement and improvement. At this time, the achievement of tonnage consumption indicators will be a matter of course. 03 Improvement--Proactive management thinking Improvement is an open management that pursues better than the status quo: The cost is lower, the efficiency is higher, the quality is better, and the delivery time is shorter. There are no regulations on how to achieve it. Everyone needs to contribute their own wisdom. Different from the standard-reaching thinking, the improvement thinking emphasizes getting better and better. The "standard" is important, and the required "standard" must of course be achieved. But the more important thing is to continuously improve consciousness and pursue better consciousness! When business managers realize the significance of improvement and deliberately cultivate an improvement culture, managers at all levels will definitely change the situation of "being a monk and hitting the clock every day" and strive to discover problems, solve problems, and summarize and improve. Many standards-based management is a closed management, which only requires doing things according to standards and regulations, which easily constrains people's thinking. ； Improvement is an open management that pursues better than the status quo: Lower costs, higher efficiency, better quality, and shorter delivery times. There are no regulations on how to achieve it, and everyone needs to contribute their own wisdom. The impact of improved awareness is huge. In the product manufacturing department, the largest department in the country of a Fortune 500 company, the department with more than 1,000 people has only 0 improvement cases per capita per month. 07 pieces. One year later, the number reached 3 per person per month, and the number of monthly improvement proposals increased by more than 40 times. Because the annual effects brought by improvements are as high as millions of yuan, the entire department has formed a dynamic improvement atmosphere that takes pride in improvement, including the number of improvement cases, the amount of improvement effects, the publication of improvement cases, and the disclosure of improvement cases. With this improvement culture, low-cost, high-quality products will naturally be produced continuously. The following is a case of equipment management compliance and improvement in a state-owned enterprise.: Before a company complied * * The ministries and commissions formulated documents and standards for enterprise equipment and safety standards, and organized a large amount of manpower and material resources to implement the standards (preparing many standard documents, memorizing, and assessing), and it took a year to finally reach the standards. A year later, when consultants from 3A company came to provide guidance, they selected four different positions, with two people in each position (the work requirements were the same, but the day and night shifts were different), and asked each person to write down the inspection requirements for the equipment they were responsible for. As a result, among all eight people in the same position, only 20% of the contents written by the people in the same position were consistent, and 80% were different (projects, sequences, methods, frequency, etc.). The following is a question and answer between 3A consultants and on-site workers.: Haven’t everyone memorized it and met the standards? Why are they inconsistent? answer: When meeting the standards, there are only general requirements such as equipment being clean, no missing parts, no abnormal noises, exceptions to be recorded, and regular refueling. As for where each specific equipment should be wiped every day, what parts should be inspected, inspection standards, methods, frequency, etc., it is not clear. Moreover, those standards implementation documents were written by the company organizers, and we just memorized these "macro" requirements. ask: Why do people in the same position behave differently? answer: It’s because each of us has worked for many years and has our own experiences and lessons. Everyone acts according to his own experience and ideas. ask: Then everyone may have different understandings. Are the abnormal records comparable? answer: Because understandings, methods, etc. are not exactly the same, abnormal records of different people may not be comparable. However, the records are just records, and there is no regular and careful analysis of abnormal records to improve the weak areas of the equipment. 3A consultants guide companies to improve their practices: Under the requirements of the company's overall equipment management, each workshop cadre and worker is organized to conduct problem discovery, problem analysis, improvement strategies, and communication on each equipment starting from the equipment they operate, and formulates specific and detailed inspection methods for each equipment (clear parts, items, methods, benchmarks, frequencies, tools, consumables, etc.), and even inspection route maps. The types of tools and consumables were unified, resulting in fewer types, and inventory and purchase volume were reduced by about 31%. This example shows that in addition to the company's macro requirements, on-site cadres and workers must also be guided to participate in improvements, and operable and specific requirements must be formulated for each piece of equipment, and the methods must be standardized. Everyone must operate according to the standards to ensure the accuracy and efficiency of equipment inspections. And with the deepening of improvement in the future, more good methods will enrich and improve the operating standards. Cultivate the concept of "only better, never reaching the standard". In addition, in terms of on-site management, the important thing is not to adopt the American 6SIGMA or the Japanese TQC and TPM. It is crucial to cultivate the awareness of continuous improvement and cultivate an improvement culture. “"Improvement" is by no means just a supplementary activity of on-site management as some domestic business managers imagine. It is a dispensable and trivial practice. It is a business philosophy and a corporate culture. source: network