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This book enables enterprise business leaders - from CEOs to supervisors - to understand what \"Continuous Improvement\" is, why it is probably the best answer to improved business performance in years, and how to put it to work in the unique environment of a specific organization. The book examines what is at the core of \"Continuous Improvement\" and delves deeper into the elements and constituents necessary to take an organization to the next level to ensure its continued, long-term existence. It provides guidance to enterprise management and to professionals engaged in the implementation of a \"Continuous Improvement\" initiative and enables them to structure and manage its implementation successfully. It also provides tools to quickly assess where an enterprise business stands in terms of strategic management and \"Continuous Improvement.\"

Overall equipment effectiveness (OEE) is a key indicator to measure the effectiveness of production systems. This paper aims to evaluate and improve a plastic production line based on OEE evaluation. An integrated framework is proposed to enhance the production system efficiency. This paper presents the data for a Plastic production line in Jordan under real working conditions. The data covers three months. A framework process to improve the OEE of the Plastic production system was proposed. Six major stoppage losses were inspected with the help of Pareto analysis. Furthermore, the actual availability, efficiency, and quality rate measures, together with the whole OEE for each working day, week, and month of the production line were shown. The methodology is based on determining the OEE of a Plastic production line after determining the causes of failures. The fishbone diagram tool is used to determine the root causes of failures. To improve the OEE measure, several losses are identified. The results reveal that the company should improve its policy to improve the production line’s performance and reduce losses. Top management should also pay attention to reducing the speed losses, which consist of 58.1%, and eliminate the planned and unscheduled disruptions covering 12.73% of all losses. This can be achieved by establishing a proper operation management procedure and strategy. This, in turn, optimized the equipment’s effectiveness. The quality procedure should include the changeover program that may be executed every day. Similarly, all preventive maintenance procedures for the six machines should be properly executed in predetermined intervals. There are several limitations in the research. Firstly, the research case study is only the plastic production system. Secondly, the research is related to the downtime or stoppage by analyzing it using fishbone diagram. Further, supported by other techniques such as the Pareto chart, six big losses analyses and CED. This research conducted on a Plastic industry. However, similar studies can be carried out in future in other manufacturing industries like electronic, pharmaceutical, textile industries, etc., and service industry. However, as future research work the contributions of this paper with other lean manufacturing concept like six sigma, quality function deployment, TQM, and just-in-time manu-facturing, can also be conducting to assess the overall production line efficiency. On the other hand, several statistical tests can be implemented based on data collected of TPM performance indicators. The proposed method supports policymakers in their decision-making process on the operations management line. Further-more, it improves the production systems’ productivity quality, and performance, reducing unplanned stop-pages and breakdowns, and reducing maintenance costs.

Purpose: This study addresses the development of a variant process planning tool, following the Knowledge-Based Variant Process Planning methodology, applied in a case study and presents the gains achieved. Methodology/Approach: Case study supported by six steps: (1) Feature Analysis, (2) Knowledge Retrieval, (3) Inference, (4) Plan Adaptation, (5) Knowledge Update, and (6) Plan Validation/Optimisation.. Findings: The implementation of the Knowledge-Based Variant Process Planning tool led to significant improvements: planner time reduced by 70%, analyst workload by 90%, and process plan errors to 0%. Results show this approach significantly improves process planning in customised production. Research Limitation/Implication: The limitations are associated with the specificity of the case study problem – the electric engine production systems. Originality/Value of paper: This study helps fill the gap in case studies on the Variant Process Planning approach, specifically for electric engine production systems, paving the way for similar companies to adopt Knowledge-Based Variant Process Planning.

Objective This article addresses the persistent challenge of Delayed Hospital Discharge (DHD) and aims to provide a comprehensive overview, synthesis, and actionable, sustainable plan based on the synthesis of the systematic review articles spanning the past 24 years. Our research aims to comprehensively examine DHD, identifying its primary causes and emphasizing the significance of effective communication and management in healthcare settings. Methods We conducted the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta‐Analyses extension for Scoping Reviews (PRISMA‐ScR) method for synthesizing findings from 23 review papers published over the last two decades, encompassing over 700 studies. In addition, we employed a practical and comprehensive framework to tackle DHD. Rooted in Linderman's model, our approach focused on continuous process improvement (CPI), which highlights senior management commitment, technical/administrative support, and social/transitional care. Our proposed CPI method comprised several stages: planning, implementation, data analysis, and adaptation, all contributing to continuous improvement in healthcare delivery. This method provided valuable insights and recommendations for addressing DHD challenges. Findings Our DHD analysis revealed crucial insights across multiple dimensions. Firstly, examining causes and interventions uncovered issues such as limited discharge destinations, signaling unsustainable solutions, and inefficient care coordination. The second aspect explored the patient and caregiver experience, emphasizing challenges linked to staff uncertainty and negative physical environments, with notable attention to the underexplored area of caregiver experience. The third theme explored organizational and individual factors, including cognitive impairment and socioeconomic influences. The findings emphasized the importance of incorporating patients' data, recognizing its complexity and current avoidance. Finally, the role of transitional and social care and financial strategies was scrutinized, emphasizing the need for multicomponent, context‐specific interventions to address DHD effectively. Conclusion This study addresses gaps in the literature, challenges prevailing solutions, and offers practical pathways for reducing DHD, contributing significantly to healthcare quality and patient outcomes. The synthesis introduces the vital CPI stage, enhancing Linderman's work and providing a pragmatic framework to eradicate delayed discharge. Future efforts will address practitioner consultations to enhance perspectives and further enrich the study. Patient or Public Contribution Our scoping review synthesizes and analyzes existing systematic review articles and emphasizes offering practical, actionable solutions. While our approach does not directly engage patients, it strategically focuses on extracting insights from the literature to create a CPI framework. This unique aspect is intentionally designed to yield tangible benefits for patients, service users, caregivers, and the public. Our actionable recommendations aim to improve hospital discharge processes for better healthcare outcomes and experiences. This detailed analysis goes beyond theoretical considerations and provides a practical guide to improve healthcare practices and policies.

\"The all-you-need-to-know primer on continuous improvement--offering best practices presented in a comprehensive, detailed case study illustrating what works and what doesn'tHow to Succeed with Continuous Improvement takes the reader through a real-life case study of one organization's journey towards a world-class continuous improvement process. It provides practical advice on methods, tools, and leadership to help operations professionals set up, execute, and continuously build upon their organization's improvement work.The book offers specific advice and practical application on how to get all employees to give maximum contributions by using their ideas to improve the organization. Each chapter details part of the transformation story and then reflects on and analyzes each concept of continuous improvement illustrated. Joakim Ahlstrom is Head of Consulting for C2, a firm that helps companies establish continuous improvements that provide measurable results. \"-- Provided by publisher.

PurposeConsidering the relevance of operational excellence as a business strategy, organizations are striving to improve themselves by adopting best practices and universally accepted principles through the process of continuous improvement, and these principles should be embedded in the culture of an organization. Organizations pursue to align themselves by continuously improving their processes by adopting scientifically proven techniques and cultural transformation throughout the organization. However, there is a lack of scientific instruments for the assessment of operational excellence. The objective of this study is to develop a scale for the assessment of practices of operational excellence principles in the organizations. Further reliability and validity of the developed scale are measured by testing the relationship between Human Resource Practices (HRP) and Operational Excellence (OE).Design/methodology/approachThis study comprises quantitative design through exploratory and confirmatory studies and also includes qualitative analysis to develop a scale for the assessment of Operational Excellence (OE). Interviews from industry experts have been conducted to identify the major components for which organizations are striving for OE. Previous literature and excellence models, especially principles of the Shingo Operational Excellence Model (SOEM), have been reviewed and considered to finalize the scale items. Data were collected in two stages from both Telecommunication subsectors (Cellular Mobile Operators and Fixed Local Loop Operators) of Pakistan through the cross-sectional survey. In the first stage, exploratory factor analysis (EFA) was performed on the sample of 611 respondents from both Cellular Mobile and Fixed Local Loop operators of Pakistan. In the second stage, confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) was performed on the sample of 423 respondents from the Fixed local loop operators. EFA was conducted by using SPSS version 23 to finalize the OE scale, and for confirmatory factor analysis, PLS-SEM using Smart PLS was used to confirm the reliability and validity of the OE Scale.FindingsThe results of EFA reveal that OE is a multidimensional construct with three dimensions and 23 items. The dimensions of the developed OE Scale explored in this study are cultural enablers (CE), continuous process improvement (CPI) and enterprise alignment (EA). The confirmatory factor analysis of OE confirmed the scale dimensionality, reliability and validity along with the hypothesis testing to measure the impact of antecedent variable HRP on OE.Research limitations/implicationsOrganizations pursue to improve and align their operational processes but usually unable to confirm the implementation of their desired objectives. Based on the developed OE scale, managers may assess the implementation of OE principles in their organizations. This research has been conducted in the telecommunication sector of Pakistan only, and the developed instrument needs to be further tested in other organizations.Practical implicationsThe instrument developed in this study will help both researchers and practitioners to assess the principles of operational excellence in their organizations and enable them to design the strategies for improving organizational performance.Social implicationsThe results of this study will create awareness about the principles of operational excellence. The developed OE instrument will assist in identifying the gaps in organizational norms and values from the perspective of paying respect to every individual inside and outside the organization. OE instrument will be further helpful in the identification and assurance of health, safety, protection of the environment and community issues.Originality/valueThis study provides a reliable and validated scale for the scientific area of operation management and helps managers with the assessment of operational excellence in their organizations. This newly developed scale is also valid to test and use in different studies and industries by researchers and practitioners.

\"This book will depict rare insights into actual failed-to-perform software systems, followed by comprehensive root-cause analyses identifying the reasons for their unsuccessful execution in production. Remedies will be provided that offer strategies to tackle the chief issues. Last, architecture and design best practices will conclude the discussion. The book will assist users to: Mitigate risks of software development projects Increase return on investments (ROI) Provide effective tools to assess technological achievability and viability Introduce software design best practices for enterprise architecture efforts Identify actual software construction value proposition Foster software assets reuse and consolidation Accelerate time-to-market \"-- Provided by publisher.

PurposeA comprehensive literature review of performance management within the Dutch steel processing industry is presented. The purpose of this paper is to analyse the motives for companies to become excellent performers in their field of expertise. These internal and external motives (refined by quantitative analysis of bibliographic data) sought to reveal the common factors that impact company performance.Design/methodology/approachInductive reasoning was adopted using an interpretivist philosophical stance to generate new theoretical insight. A mixed-methods analysis of pertinent extant literature afforded greater synthesis of the research problem domain and generated more valid and reliable findings. The software visualisation of similarities viewer was used to conduct a qualitative bibliographic analysis of extant literature to yield greater clarification on the phenomena under investigation.FindingsFour thematic groups of past research endeavours emerged from the analysis and were assigned appropriate nomenclature, namely: industry internal motives; industry external motives; excellent performer and incremental working method. To further expand upon the continuous improvement process (CIP – embodied within performance management), the paper describes the virtuous cycle of improvement, which consists of the consecutive steps of “planning”, “doing”, “checking” and ultimately of “acting” accordingly to the previous steps. It can be concluded that a high-performing company acts according to its mission, plans in line with the vision do as defined in the strategy and checks by reflection.Originality/valueThis unique study provides invaluable insight into the performance management of Dutch steel processing companies. Although the research context was narrowly defined, the findings presented are equally applicable to clients, contractors and sub-contractors active in other sectors of the construction industry. The research concludes by prescribing factors of mitigation strategies to support chief executive officers to focus on the optimum distribution of their scarce resources.