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Chapter 20
Organizing for
improvement
Key questions
➤ Why does improvement need
organizing?
➤ How should the improvement effort
be linked to strategy?
➤ What information is needed for
improvement?
➤ What should be improvement
priorities?
➤ How can organizational culture
affect improvement?
➤ What are the key implementation
issues?
Introduction
This is the third, and final, chapter devoted to operations
improvement. It examines some of the managerial issues
associated with improvement can be organized. There are
no techniques as such in this chapter. Nor are all the issues
dealt with easily defined. Rather it covers the ‘soft’ side of
improvement. But do not dismiss this as in any way less
important. In practice it is often the ‘soft’ stuff that determines
the success or failure of improvement efforts. Moreover, the
‘soft’ stuff can be more difficult to get right than the ‘hard’, more
technique-based, aspects of improvement. The ‘hard’ stuff is
hard, but the ‘soft’ stuff is harder!
Figure 20.1 This chapter covers organizing of improvement
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