Dear Manjushree,
Whether for HR professionals or otherwise, the ideas for continuous improvement should result in:
a) Reduction in Cost of Poor Quality (CoPQ) and
b) Reduction in the turnaround time of some process
A brainstorming technique is used to generate the ideas on the above two. To generate the ideas, have you taught the brainstorming technique to your employees? In fact, even before teaching this technique, have you measured the CoPQ and mapped the turnaround time for the various processes? If not, then I recommend that you give priority to this activity first.
My Experience on Idea Generation on Energy Conservation: - A few years ago, I had provided consulting services on idea generation to reduce the energy consumption in a steel plant. The client had called me because they had been using brainstorming techniques and had implemented more than 1,000 ideas in the last 10 years. They had maintained records of the ideas generated, the ideas accepted and further ideas implemented. They told me that their capacity to generate was exhausted and were unable to generate ideas for process improvement on their own. Therefore, I had a huge challenge. Nevertheless, in two sessions, I could generate 101 ideas of which 46 were absolutely new.
Another client once had called me for idea generation on change management. In that session, I could generate 12 brand new ideas.
Organisational Maturity: - The Japanese were the first to use the technique of continuous improvement. However, Indian companies just cannot imitate what Japanese companies do. This is because it requires immense organisational maturity to implement this technique. The systems and processes must be stabilised, and the work should go on in a very organised manner. Otherwise, the technique could fail.
Limitation of Continuous Improvement: - Working on continuous improvement is fine, however, it has limitations too. It may be noted that the electric bulb was invented, and it was not developed by making continuous improvements in the candle. Therefore, path-breaking changes have their own place in the world and cannot be placed at par with routine products or process development.
Thanks,
Dinesh Divekar