Continuous Improvement

Never Stop Learning

So what is “Continuous Improvement”? (CI)  In short, it is a business management system or philosophy aimed at producing ongoing incremental improvements throughout an organisation, especially in quality and efficiency.

When thinking about CI and reducing consumption/costs around your school its important to keep up the good work already in place and ensuring that old ‘bad habits’ don’t return.  Technology moves at such a pace that within a year or 2 there will developments that can help you continue your efforts to reduce consumption.

Principals of Continuous Improvements

1. Improvements are based on minor changes not just major changes or new concepts. – By approaching change in small steps, the CI model reduced the fear factor and increase improvement speed.
2. Utilise your pupils/employees – the model relies heavily on pupils/employees because they can identify opportunities for improvement after all your employees are the ones closest to any issues.
3. Progressive improvements are inexpensive to implement – this one speaks for itself really, as its a little and often principal, which often come about by improvements in technology. For example
4. Pupils/employees take responsibility and have a sense of belonging through involvement – When people come up with their own ideas to improve their work or the work of a company, they begin to see the value in making changes. This gives pupils/employees a sense of empowerment.
5. Improvement allows for reflection – continual feedback throughout the continuous improvement model is key. This is difficult to implement due to a lack of time however there are team collaboration channels like Microsoft Teams allow individuals to communicate easily and quickly to assigned groups.
6. Improvement is measurable and potentially repeatable. – To recognise if a real achievement has been made it needs to be measured. This makes it clear if the change has been successful. Making continuous improvement part of company culture is a cost-effective approach to facing the business’s most difficult challenges