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White Paper: HPC Lean Assessment FAQs

White Paper: Escape the Improvement Trap

"The Lean assessment Cumberland (HPC Chicago) provides is very useful in helping our plants focus on the right initiatives to drive further improvement."

– Leslie Clark
VP Operations,
Elkay Manufacturing Co.

"It ain't what you know that gets you in trouble. It's what you think you know that just ain't so."

– Satchel Page

BUSINESS PERFORMANCE ASSESSMENT

Knowing your starting point — clearly and in detail — is the first step in the improvement journey.

You want to use resources where they can do the most good. That starts with taking a methodical approach to sorting the true, fundamental opportunities from the many possibilities in the complex stew of any company.

Lean Business Assessment

Used to identify how effectively your organizations uses the common improvement tools.

Industry leaders never assume they are "good enough." They always believe that they can be better, and must continuously measure where they fall short of their vision of ideal and best operating practices.

Member companies of the High Performance Consortiums (HPC) Network and the Association for Manufacturing Excellence (AME) use the Lean Assessment annually to identify opportunities to accelerate their efforts for continuous business process performance improvement.

Key steps include:

• Rate the observable evidence of your process capabilities and actual practices.
• Identify any serious weaknesses to be reinforced ASAP.
• Identify lean practices where improvement progress has stalled or is falling short.
• Set priorities for process improvement actions to be taken next. And follow through.

Improvement Maturity (IM) Assessment

Used to optimize your improvement effectiveness (i.e., Are you more effective at getting better this year than you were last year?)

To outrun your competitors, business performance improvement cannot be sporadic, or unpredictable. It must be continuous; and part of everyone's daily routine. The Improvement Maturity Process makes Continuous Improvement systemic and sustainable, as achieved by Level 5 industry leaders.

• Assess your Improvement Maturity Level and effectiveness.
• Identify any weak or missing IM ingredients.
• Set priorities for improvement actions. Follow through.
• Management is responsible for the IM process and ingredients.

Reference the simple Three Question Assessment to determine if your organization is average or better than average in terms of its improvement effectiveness. (Take the Quick Test – Improvement Maturity ). For more information about Organizational Improvement Maturity, see white paper: Escape the Improvement Trap.