Rapid Improvement Approach

Why Rapid Process Improvement is More Necessary Than Ever

Manufacturers often develop problems and constraints over time. Acquisitions and growth gradually lead to disparate operating systems, technologies, and cultures across the organization. One day the company doesn’t look or act like it did before — and not for the better. Executives suddenly realize they need to fix a raft of issues now:

• Deteriorating manufacturing operations damage key performance indicators (e.g., safety, quality, delivery), putting profits — and employees — at risk.
• External factors — geopolitical and economic shifts — require quick changes to adapt operations to new challenges and opportunities.
• Disjointed systems and technologies create management and communication gaps that prevent collaboration and frustrate employees, leading to high labor turnover and low employee involvement.
• New competitors and customer expectations require dramatically improved performance levels.

Quickly Identify and Rapid Improvement Projects

Knowing where to focus your improvement efforts is critical to generating quick wins for your manufacturing operations. Identifying risks and deciding where to direct your attention is key. With a singular focus, it allows organizations to set the bold and targeted goals they need to achieve, anticipating expected outcomes. But it’s more than just completing the work. How plant managers, executive teams, and other associates engage their teams and work together to implement the right processes and procedures are critical to ensuring immediate success and long-term, continuous improvement gains.

For companies in need of immediate recovery or transformation, this Rapid Improvement (RI) process pinpoints specific principles of the Performance Management System and escalates implementation with focused precision providing a speedy approach to specific needs within a few months. With Performance Solutions RI, you can transform your high-impact improvement opportunities into your greatest wins.

Organizations can take advantage of our vast knowledge of manufacturing improvement methodologies and our partnering practitioners’ ability to coach and lead your teams to successfully transform your operations.

Designed specifically for companies in need of immediate recovery or transformation, our Rapid Improvement approach identifies specific principles of our proprietary Performance Management System and escalates implementation with focused precision to unlock measurable change and efficiency in abbreviated timeframes, aiming for the final report which embodies lessons learned.

What is Rapid Improvement and How Does it Differ from Operational Excellence?

Rapid Improvement is a blitz approach on a constraint asset or bottleneck where you need to get more throughput. Oftentimes we see a lack of internal bandwidth or internal capabilities to address the challenges can stall performance for an organization. With the focused of RIA, many clients see 5-10 Points of OEE on a constraint asset within a 4-month timeframe.

Operational Excellence builds a holistic operating system through leadership development, employee engagement, and process improvement, starting with a model machine or line and replicating across your entire facility. 

Why Rapid Improvement?

If your manufacturing organization is looking for immediate performance improvements on a specific asset, RIA can help you achieve those results. Whether the need is based on sales, schedule attainment, performance, ROIC challenges, or plans to sunset idle equipment/locations across the network, we’ll target our strategy and work with your team to demonstrate short-term wins.

The Keys to Success with Performance Solutions by Milliken

1. Practitioner Talent: Years of manufacturing experience has given Milliken Practitioners a deep understanding of process improvement methodologies through a hands-on, interactive approach
2. Disciplined Deployment: Following through on each step of the process ensures that every associate understands the process itself and the complete continuous improvement approach behind the change
3. Focused Approach: Each performance objective must be approached realistically and teams must avoid chasing unrelated opportunities