Continuous Improvement Software

Continuous Improvement Software

Kaizen (改善), Japanese for "improvement", or "change for the better" refers to philosophy or practices that focus upon continuous improvement of processes in manufacturing, engineering, game development, and business management. It has been applied in healthcare, life-coaching, government, banking, and other industries. When used in the business sense and applied to the workplace, kaizen refers to activities that continually improve all functions, and involves all employees from the CEO to the assembly line workers. It also applies to processes, such as purchasing and logistics, that cross organizational boundaries into the supply chain. By improving standardized activities and processes, kaizen aims to eliminate waste.

Every company that grows and expends, would be implementing Kaizen in improving their operations to the next level. Similarly, the system and software that your company use must be ready to support the evolution of your continuous improvement process. If your software is fixed, like an inanimate object, a shirt, for example, as your company grows, surely your process cannot fit inside the fixed state of your software. You would then need to buy new shirts every few years as you have outgrown the capability of your software.

To check if your software is ready to support your company growth, you would need to check if your system has the following criteria:

Continually Version and Upgrades

Just like a company that practice Kaizen, the software also need to have continuous improvement. If you compare the software you purchased 2 years ago, with the same software you purchase now, you should be able to see that there are new features available. Software, like people, need to keep up with times, producing more features and capability to handle different evolving industrial standard process.

Web software are usually the best in this area. Web systems are designed for easy upgrades, with minimal impact on existing customers. Systems like Facebook and Google Applications, have monthly upgrades without the hassle of installing in all user PC, all because they are web-based and would just need a web-browser to access.

If you are purchasing new system, look for their new feature list, to ensure that the software you need, is getting better and better in fitting to your company's needs.

Flexibility in Configuration

Software must be dynamic enough to handle common differences in company process. After initial installation and settings, your company in the near future may have changes in the process definition. You may form a new department that handles only certain documents and products. Or your workflow process may now need more approval, or your commission scheme now includes different percentage for different level.

These are features that you may not use initially, but with them available in the system, it means that the software at least can handle not only your current needs, but have some flexible growth level for your company future needs.

Capability to Customize as Needed

As your company grow, your management may have created a totally new process plan, which is not supported by the current version of the software. In most company, you would then just have to set some of the process to be external from the software, to be done manually. This unfortunately is the company process limited to fit the software. What we need is actually, software that fit the company process.

When your company has continuous improvement process, you must consider also that your software, or software provider, is able to customize and code the system as to your need. Ensure that there is some development capability for the software to be modified to customized needs. Off-shelf systems are often harder to customize then web-based systems, but it should at least have the option to. If it is really fixed, then you would have to consider your company growth scale, compared with the current capability of the system.

Summary

Companies and software, are like people. They need to grow and improve themselves to be better in what they are doing. This is Kaizen process. So, if your company is practising Continuous Improvement Process, make sure your software not only supports this practice, it should also grows with you.