The fast pace of today’s business environment is breeding change at a rate that has never been experienced before.  Manufacturers continually feel the pressure to implement strategies that will help their processes be more productive, more efficient, and less costly.  Technological advances, economic forces, demographic fluctuations, environmental concerns and regulations, and supplier and competitor activities influence companies to improve processes.

But how do you ensure that change will be a positive step for your organization?  First the company needs to determine that a new process will help attain its strategic goals.  Once that has been established, there are six steps that will help you manage and be successful with your implementation.

Six Steps to Successful Change

1. Create urgency within your company
Everyone involved with the improvement process must feel the need to change.  To create this urgency, people need to visualize the problem and understand how it affects them as well as how altering the situation will benefit them.

2. Build the team to lead the change
Many companies contain divisions as well as many layers of management.  In order for a team to be successful, it needs to represent every party that will be affected by the new process.  Proper representation directly correlates with buy-in:  choose individuals from across departments or divisions and levels of management.  A few individuals from the team should be selected to lead the team and provide structure to meetings.  Leadership and structure will help keep people focused on the transformation rather than on themselves.

3. Communicate the vision throughout the company
Change, no matter how small, elicits emotion.  Without proper communication, your employees may begin to fear that their job may be altered or, worse, eliminated as a result of the new initiatives.  Others may feel that the present way of doing things is best and create a barrier for the team’s efforts.  Education is the key to overcoming both of these scenarios.  Use your team leading the initiative to clearly explain the vision throughout the company as well as the steps involved in the implementation and how the new process will benefit them.  Most emotions about change are caused from a lack of understanding about the process and the end benefit. 

4. Realize that change does not happen immediately
Change initiatives can take months to fully implement. Unfortunately, long time frames can discourage the team leading the process.  Structure the initiative with periodic check points or with smaller projects that will have visual results.  Achieving periodic wins motivates the team to continue.  When the team witnesses their efforts making a difference, it reinforces the idea that the decision to implement an improvement initiative was appropriate and necessary.

5. Continue moving forward
Patience is a virtue in process improvement as well as in life.  As mentioned above, change implementations may span many months, but when progress has stalled, it is up to the leaders of the team to continue to push the efforts forward.  Placing the project on hold will destroy the urgency and motivation that is fueling your team.  This, however, is not meant to sacrifice quality work in an effort to move quickly.  Quality work and steady progress are ideal.

6. Maintain your success
Once the team has achieved their goal, develop structure and measurement systems to ensure that the improvements remain in place.  Educating the people responsible for operating the new process and establishing periodic reviews of how the process is working are essential.  Accountability through metrics will also help both the people and the process continue to be successful; that is, if people know what to watch for and what they are measured on, behaviors will change accordingly. 

In closing, implementing a change can be both exciting and stressful.  It is crucial that you have the right parties involved and good communication of the plans throughout the company.  Remember that keeping people informed and motivated will determine the success of your improvement initiative.