Over the years, just about all organizations have adopted a continuous improvement program, many based on lean principles. But there’s a key question that often never gets asked: How does a company know where to improve next?
One solution is to make a chart of issues and rank them in order of what should be worked on next. Another typical approach is to look at how much effort the improvements would take, consider how many people are available to work on them, and then opt for what can yield the most improvement with the least effort. The most popular method is to send a team to where there is a problem, brainstorm, improve the area, and then find another area with a problem—a whack-a-mole approach.