Creative Thinking and Continuous Improvement for Enhanced Productivity
Creative Thinking
Thought
It is a fundamental activity of the brain and a complex form of cognitive behavior that only appears in a relatively advanced stage of development.
Creativity and Stimulation
Creativity requires at least three conditions:
- A new idea or response must be produced.
- This idea or response must solve a problem or achieve a certain goal.
- The original knowledge must be maintained and developed to the fullest.
Characteristics of the Creator
- Aggressive and dominant behavior
- High energy level brought to their work
- High appreciation of aesthetic and theoretical values
- Independence of thought and action
Creative Thinking
Can be defined in several ways:
- Halpern (1984) states that one can think of creativity as the ability to form new combinations of ideas to fill a need.
- Barron (1969) notes that the creative process includes a constant dialectic between integration and expansion, convergence and divergence, thesis and antithesis.
- Perkins (1984) highlights an important characteristic of creative thinking:
- Creative thinking is structured in a way that tends to lead to creative results.
- The ultimate criterion of creativity is the result.
- We call a person creative when they consistently get creative results, meanings, and appropriate original results by the domain criterion.
Essential Characteristics of Creative Thinking
Fluency: Refers to the ability to generate a considerable amount of ideas or answers to established approaches.
Flexibility: Considering alternatives to manage our different fields or categories of response, turning our heads the other way, looking for a broader view, or different from what it has always been.
Originality: The most characteristic of creativity; it involves thinking of ideas that nobody would ever have or viewing problems differently, resulting in innovative answers to problems.
Development: This consists of adding elements or details to existing ideas, modifying some of its attributes.
Continuous Improvement
James Harrington (1993) believes that to improve a process means to change it to make it more effective, efficient, and adaptable to change. How it changes depends on the specific entrepreneurial approach and the developed world.
Abell, D. (1994) gives the concept of continuous improvement as a mere historical extension of one of the principles of scientific management, established by Frederick Taylor, who claims that any method of work is capable of being improved (from the course dictated by Continuous Improvement Fadi Kbbaul).
Importance of Continuous Improvement
- Its application can help improve the weaknesses and reinforce the strengths of the organization.
- It helps the organization become more productive and competitive in the market. Other organizations should analyze the processes used so that if there is any problem, it can be improved or corrected. As a result of applying this technique, organizations can grow in the marketplace and become leaders.
Advantages of Continuous Improvement
- Effort is concentrated in specific areas of the organization and procedures.
- Best accomplished in the short-term with visible results.
- Reduction of defective products results in a reduction in costs due to lower consumption of raw materials.
- Increases productivity and directs the organization towards competitiveness, which is of vital importance for existing organizations.
Disadvantages of Continuous Improvement
- When improvement is concentrated in a specific area of the organization, you lose the perspective of the interdependence of all members of the company.
- Requires a change throughout the organization, as success requires the participation of all members of the organization at all levels.
- Given that managers in small and medium enterprises are very conservative, continuous improvement is a lengthy process.
- Requires major investments.
Improving Basic Activities
Senior Management Commitment
The improvement process must begin with the principals and progresses to the extent of the level of commitment that they acquire, that is, in the interest they put in bettering themselves and being better every day.
Improvement Board
It consists of a group of top executives who will study the process of improving production and seek to adapt to the needs of the company.
Total Participation Management
The management team is a group responsible for implementing process improvement. This implies the active participation of all executives and supervisors of the organization.
Employee Involvement
Once the management team is trained in the process, it will involve conditions for employees.
Individual Participation
It is important to develop systems that provide all individuals with the means to contribute, be measured, and recognized for their personal contributions to the benefit of improvement.
Equipment Systems Improvement (equipment for process control)
Any activity that is repeated is a process that can be controlled. It produces diagrams of process flow, then we include measurements, controls, and feedback loops.
Activities with Participation of Providers
Any successful process improvement should take into account contributions from suppliers.
Quality Assurance
Resources for quality assurance, dedicated to solving problems related to the products, must be reoriented to control systems that help improve operations and avoid problems that arise.
Quality Plans and Strategies: Short Term & Long Term Quality
Each company must develop a strategy for long-term quality. Then you must ensure that all administrative groups understand the strategy so that its members can draw up detailed plans in the short term to ensure that the activities of the groups overlap and support the long-term strategy.
Recognition System
The breeding process aims to change the way people think about mistakes. For this, there are two ways to strengthen the implementation of the desired changes: punish all those who fail to do their jobs all the time or reward all individuals and groups when they reach the finish line and have made an important contribution to the improvement process.
Continuous Improvement, from the Classic Models
Deming
- Creating constancy of purpose for product improvement
- Adopting a new philosophy
- Constantly and forever improving every process
- Instituting quality training
- Adopting and instituting leadership
- Eliminating fear
- Breaking down barriers between staff areas
Crosby’s 14 Steps to Improve Quality
- Ensure that management is committed to quality.
- Form teams to improve quality with representatives from each department.
- Determine how to analyze where they have quality problems and prospects.
- Evaluate the cost of quality.
- Increase information about quality and the personal interest of employees.
- Take formal action to correct problems identified during the previous steps.
- Establish a commission for the program “Zero Defects.”
Juran
Established a methodology for improvement that includes the following steps:
- Problem Definition: The expression of the problems as manifested in reality: dissatisfied customers, increasing the number of defects, rejection, etc.
- Demonstrate the Need to Solve the Problem: Achieved through cost-benefit analysis of the solution of problems to convince management of the importance of investing in the solution.
- Select Study Project: Applying the Pareto Principle, it is chosen which of the existing problems would be more convenient to attack initially.
- Organization for Diagnosis: Creating bodies and executors.
- Diagnosis of the Situation: Definition of responsibility for error
- Error Classification
Steps for Continuous Improvement
Step One: Selection of the Problems (Opportunities for Improvement)
This step is aimed at the identification and choice of quality problems and productivity of the department or unit under analysis.
Step Two: Quantitation and Subdivision of the Problem or Opportunity for Best Selection
The aim of this step is to clarify the problem definition, quantification, and possible subdivision into subproblems or causes/symptoms.
Step Three: Specific Root Cause Analysis
The aim of this step is to identify and verify the specific root causes of the problem in question, those whose removal will ensure non-recurrence of the same.
Step Four: Establishment of Level of Performance Required (Improvement Goals)
The aim of this step is to establish the performance level required of the system or unit and targets to achieve.
Step Five: Design and Programming Solutions
The aim of this step is to identify and plan solutions that will impact significantly on eliminating the root causes.
Step Six: Implementation of Solutions
This step has two objectives:
Testing the effectiveness of the (s) solution (s) and make necessary adjustments to reach a final.
Ensure that solutions are properly assimilated and implemented by the organization in their daily work.
STEP SEVEN:
ESTABLISHMENT OF SHARES OF GUARANTEE
The aim of this step is to ensure maintenance of the new level of performance achieved. This is a crucial step which is rarely given due attention. Of it will depend on the stability of results and learning accumulation to deepen the process.