Studying continuous improvement from a knowledge perspective
Introduction
This paper concerns a project undertaken at BAE SYSTEMS to study the way that Continuous Improvement (CI) is actually implemented by staff in a particular work cell. CI is a strategic activity within a business that faces major competitive pressures to reduce manufacturing costs and timescales, whilst increasing quality and productivity. This study was intended to supplement its knowledge about how CI is currently working and how CI itself could be improved. Traditional process studies tend to focus on what happens and less so on how it happens, the latter being the focus of this novel study.
Knowledge Structure Mapping (KSM) is the main technique that we use within the framework of a Structural Knowledge Audit (SKA) [4], [2]. SKA provides a complete methodology within which KSM can be applied with confidence and includes detailed definitions of each of the key stages of an audit, including the important preparatory work that must be undertaken to establish the context for the actual KSM.
The Samlesbury Factory in Lancashire is at the heart of Eurofighter Typhoon production. Manufacture in this and almost all other areas of aerospace demands constant innovation and improvement. Technological advances mean that advanced aircraft need to come into service much faster than they used to which means that manufacturing methods and assembly lines need to reach near optimum performance much sooner. Even at these levels, improvements must always be sought and general lessons learned must be studied to provide improved methods for future projects.
CI in aerospace manufacture needs to be more than a manufacturing approach, it needs to be a way of life.
BAE SYSTEMS staff at Samlesbury have, for many years, been closely involved in the work carried out by the Applied Knowledge Research Institute (AKRI), the research arm of Blackburn College. This has meant that the company is fully aware of developments made within AKRI and in many cases has contributed to those developments.
This combination of business need and knowledge research involvement meant that BAE SYSTEMS was able to consider novel approaches to existing problems that had not been tested before.
Making a link between KSM and CI may not appear obvious at first sight. However, BAE SYSTEMS were involved in some initial trials of the early work on KSM in 1998 and through its internal improvement processes it is constantly looking for ways to improve. The early trials of KSM in the factory were very successful, leading to significant cost savings in one manufacturing area. BAE SYSTEMS were aware of the developments to KSM that had been achieved since then and therefore, the company was in a good position to consider the application of KSM to CI from a well-informed perspective [5].
Part of Eurofighter Typhoon Manufacture is the Advanced Manufacturing Technology (AMT) cell. This cell carries out complex, high technology and high precision automated machining operations on aircraft frames. The cell has a well-motivated staff who are used to adapting to change, solving problems and improving performance to match more and more demanding schedules. The staff from this cell have worked with a CI mentality for some time and have developed their own techniques that are additional to those used within the rest of the factory.
The factory at Samlesbury had also recently appointed a new manager in charge of the development of CI across the site. This meant that CI would be studied with fresh eyes and improvements to CI would be sought. The four key areas that met to make this project both possible and desirable were in summary:
- 1.
A serious demand for CI and a need to disseminate Best Practice.
- 2.
A participatory knowledge of KSM.
- 3.
An active and well motivated cell with CI experience.
- 4.
A new site wide initiative in CI.
An additional factor was that the company could use the project also as an opportunity to evaluate the effectiveness of applying KSM to specific business issues. This was an important additional factor because although KSM had been used successfully several years earlier, this was intended to address a specific business need and no attempt was made at the time to evaluate the approach in a more general business context.
Section snippets
The knowledge structure mapping
A Knowledge Structure Map (KSM) is intended to provide several things that support the management and development of a knowledge resource. A KSM also represents an excellent way of studying a concept from a knowledge perspective. Detailed descriptions of KSM, its intended uses and how it supports management have been dealt with in more detail elsewhere [3]. The aim here is to show how a KSM is an appropriate way to study the area of CI.
The CI investigation
This section will describe how the investigation was carried out and what decisions were taken at the outset and as the study developed. Stages from initial plans to delivery of results will be considered.
Project results
This section will present a flavour for the results, analysis and conclusions only. The work was an actual commercial project and it would be inappropriate to present results in detail, even if space permitted.
Initial business reaction
A number of the staff involved in the audit were initially sceptical of yet another management initiative. This has been encountered in earlier audits and is one of the reasons that great care is given to gaining the support of the team in the earliest stages. Practically, this meant holding a half-day introductory presentation that explained the approach, the aims and objectives of the audit and how individuals would be encouraged to contribute. It cannot be overstated how important this
Conclusion
KSM offered a novel and stimulating approach to the study of an important business area as well as highlighting the potential to address a wide range of knowledge focussed business issues. It provided a new perspective on existing problems and also generated some surprising results that caused the team to rethink some of their ideas about how continuous improvement actually works in practice. Encouragingly, the initial scepticism of some team members was replaced by a genuine enthusiasm for the
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