by Mark Stover

Alignment and performance go hand in hand in any organization, and it’s especially crucial for manufacturers on the path to lean.

To create a sustainable continuous improvement culture, all stakeholders must know both where the company is going and how they are going to get there.  Policy management is designed to create clear, actionable understanding of those two foundational issues.

Policy management, or “getting the right things done,” is the responsibility of management in a truly lean enterprise.

Bridging intent with everyday pursuits

For lean to be successful, it must help a company accomplish its strategic goals. For employees to know their work makes a difference, their continuous improvement efforts must result in helping to achieve those strategic goals. Policy management is the bridge that connects successful continuous improvement projects with business outcomes.

Policy management (sometimes also known as policy deployment) is a dynamic means of aligning strategic intent with tactical continuous improvement activities. The “policy” being managed or deployed is the strategic intent of the business as set by ownership and senior management.  Maintaining alignment between strategic intent and everyday continuous improvement is the most important thing lean management can do.  It is also one of the most challenging because it requires disciplined, consistent, focused effort.

Strategy should translate directly into what people do in their day-to-day jobs. When employees are asked why a particular activity is important, they should be able to respond by verbalizing the strategic rationale behind the activity. Correct answers will reflect the company’s established intent and its means of getting there.

Keep in mind that policy management isn’t an addition to the company’s regular strategic planning process – it is its strategic planning, and especially its strategic deployment process. Policy management works within the established reporting system of supervisors and employees at every level to ensure continuous strategic focus.

Five factors behind effectiveness

So how does a manager muster that disciplined, consistent, focused effort?  There are five time-tested approaches that will help a manager build an organization that creates and sustains a lean culture.

1. Plan-Do-Check-Adjust (PDCA). PDCA can be applied by both supervisors and front-line employees. The heart of PDCA is to grasp the essence of a situation at hand guided by a series of questions.
   
   
   • Is my plan based on our needs? (Safety, quality, delivery, or cost, for example.)
   • How are we doing right now? (Conduct a process check.)
   • What must be adjusted to get back on track? (Exercise standard problem-solving methods.)
   
   PDCA performed daily, hourly, or more often if necessary, is a standard problem-solving approach to any issue so that focused improvements through small adjustments can be made long before larger (and more costly) ones are required.
   
   
   
2. Catchball. Likened to throwing a ball back and forth, a vigorous give and take between and among management helps to develop strong strategies and buy-in to their implementation. The catchball process should promote frank discussions centered around strategic scenarios until a focus is reached and an alignment is secured. The exchange often releases latent ingenuity and ultimately integrates vision with workplace actions.
   
   
   
3. Pacemaker. Similar to a value stream manager, a pacemaker is a manager who works to align and pace activity across the business, making certain that plans are executed. Such managers lead strategic planning processes, bring problems to light, coordinate solutions, and build required support systems.
   
   
   
4. A3 Thinking. A reference to 11 x 17 paper size, an A3 is really just the evidence that careful, strategic thinking has taken place.  An A3 tells a persuasive story based on performance data and reflection on what that data means for future action to support continuous improvement. A3 plans are created to align and communicate both department and personal action plans.
   
   
   
5. Management Process. To advance strategic policy, all four approaches are mapped into a management process with hourly, daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly, and/or mid-year and annual progress reviews. The outcome is a kind of visual management whereby everyone knows how the business is performing daily, as well as what’s expected of everyone individually.  Ultimately, the result is an industry leading enterprise because strategic intent is consistently realized.

Have the results of your continuous improvement efforts helped you accomplish your business strategies?  If you are not noticing much movement in this area, policy deployment can help. For a free readiness assessment, please contact Mark Stover at mstover@wipfli.com or (608) 661-2639.  This two-hour process will provide you with the perspective on what is needed to implement deployment at your company.