Development of continuous improvement model

This thesis is concentrating on a project work conducted in the Delivery Operations department of Valmet Paper and Board Mills Business Unit. Target organization had need to develop a systematic and visual continuous improvement process to be utilized by all the employees. For this project there was established a specific project team which was led by the author of this thesis. This thesis is seeking answer to a guiding research question: how to do systematic continuous improvement within an organization? Theoretical framework is consisting of literature and prior research concerning continuous improvement topic from different angles ranging from philosophy of improvement work, tools and methods for continuous improvement and the role of the company culture in continuous improvement. Research was done by utilizing interviews, company survey and company bench marking to find out best practices and learn from the past experiences within the target company. The research data was primarily qualitative, and the data was analyzed and validated by the project team and synthesized into concrete recommendations for the target organization which also utilizes the own analysis of the thesis author and the project team members. The findings of the research were that there is need to clarify the process and responsibilities how to do continuous improvement. There was also needed to prioritize and ensure resources for the development work. To achieve this, it is required that the continuous improvement activities are quantified and visualized so that the management commitment can be achieved. It was also seen that the people who are making root cause analyses and corrective actions should be trained more to possess enough skills on the most common and effective tools to be used for improvement work. As the outcome of this project work the project team created continuous improvement process description and recommendations for next steps to be carried out in the organization