STARS: the implementation of a Computer-Aided Employee Suggestion Management System to operationalize a continuous improvement process

Abstract

Organizations are looking for ways to sustain incremental improvements. For this end, we developed a Computer-Aided Employee Suggestion Management System (CAESMS) called STARS. The need was to make the problem visible and support employees in their efforts to reduce waste and increase employee satisfaction. Because human interaction with technology in the context of work can be very challenging, an introduction process called “1,2,3 STARS” was designed to set up STARS smoothly and support the transition. The proposed solution was tested in three working conditions to assess its relevance and limitations. Each test lasted 16 weeks. Indicators from these tests were compared to a reference study based on a non-technological experimentation based on a similar problem-solving methodology (Restrepo et al. in Int J Health Care Qual Assur 29(3):253–266. doi:10.1108/IJHCQA-02-2015-0022, 2016). The introduction of STARS technology provided relevant qualitative and quantitative results: (1) the cycle time for closing actions was reduced by 19.04% compared to the earlier study; (2) the number of actions in progress at the same time was also reduced by 49.82% from the earlier study; and (3) the leadership routine substantially increases the chances of introducing CAESMS on a long-term basis.