What is Process Improvement?

 Have you ever had a bad customer service experience? Most of us have had at least one, and probably many more. It is very easy to complain, and the worse the experience the more likely we are to want to tell others about the extent of the bad service we have received. Have you ever filled out a customer service survey with specific examples of how the company could improve their level of service? Did you ever wonder if they read your comments and helpful suggestions? Wouldn’t it be great if companies actually appreciated the valuable input they receive from their customers and took the suggestions seriously so that they could improve their customer service.

 Every day we do the same activities at home or at work, yet we often do not give them a second thought. We are so used to do things the way we always have, it is often very difficult for us to think of a better way to do things.  Sometimes we need to step back and look at the things we do in a new way. It is amazing how someone with no experience can take a look at something that we do, and suggest a more efficient way of doing it.

A great example was when Henry Ford was interested in buying perfectly clear glass to use as windshields in his automobiles. He approached the glass manufacturers, and they assured him that all glass had inherent defects due to the method in which glass was made, and that bottle glass was the best he could buy, even though it would cause significant problems to a driver, when the windshield distorted the drivers view. Henry Ford did not accept the answer from the glass manufacturers, instead he commissioned a group of people who knew nothing about glass making to come up with a process that would produce the kind of glass he needed for his cars. The group did this by reinventing the way in which glass was made, floating it instead of blowing it. The result was perfectly clear glass. This was an example of a radical case of process improvement, basically designing a new process to achieve the required results.

 Process improvement does not always have to be this radical, sometimes we just need to make a lot of small changes, and in this way the process is constantly enhanced and improved. The most innovative companies in the world are using their people to enhance their daily work by implementing ideas for constant process improvement. In this way the company becomes increasingly more competitive in the marketplace.