Elisabeth Viles Diez

LOS SISTEMAS DE MEJORA CONTINUA Y EL DESPILFARRO: LA CONTINUACIÓN DE LA OBRA DE TAYLOR

After Taylor and Ford’s approaches, the Japanese industry, with its main leading exponent Toyota, showed that it is possible to have a greater level of flexibility and productivity through its principles of “just in time, versatility of labor, any inventory, continuous flow production and continuous improvement. Diversity of concepts, proposals and even philosophies have arisen from the original ideas of Taiichi Ohno and his associates, however, when they are going to be implemented in a organization its key essence is lost. The purpose of this paper, result of a review of the literature on continuous improvement systems, is to show how different approaches developed around the Toyota Production System interact. At the same time to emphasize in their common and decisive points to consider in its implementation. For this task, it has to be turned to original concepts of the leading authors such as Taiichi Ohno, Masaaki Imai, Hiroyuki Hirano, Shigeo Shingo, James Womack and Daniel Jones. All of them known such as gurus in the field of continuous improvement. Thus, this article contributes to a holistic understanding on continuous improvement systems implementation. As a conclusion, besides the wasting considered the focus of attention of different approaches, there is also a general interest in engaging staff in improvement programs through the change of habits, permanent staff training in the improvement fundamentals and techniques, leaving behind the vicious circle that links continuous improvement with a condition of lacking work, and finally motivate a change of mind, create a climate of trust before starting to implement a continuous improvement program. In this sense, the management processes and the learning of employees working in harmony are two aspects that lead an organization to improve in both: productivity as competitiveness.

Developing a Pre-scale for Evaluating Supervisors’ Directive Style in Continuous Improvement Environments

The level of workers’ commitment and participation has a huge impact on the success of continuous improvement initiatives. One of the non-written duties of middle managers is creating a trust-culture that enhances commitment and participation, which can be achieved with the appropriate directive style. In this paper, we present a pre-scale of four dimensions and fifty-five middle managers’ behaviors that encourage employee commitment towards and participation in continuous improvement activities. The list has been developed putting together the opinions of operators and supervisors, as well as businessmen, university professors and consultants.

HERRAMIENTA PARA EVALUAR LA PARTICIPACIÓN EN MEJORA CONTINUA

La implantacion de sistemas de mejora continua (MC) es una de las estrategias que utilizan las empresas para alcanzar la excelencia y mejorar su competitividad. Uno de los pilares de estos sistemas consiste en hacer participar a todos los miembros de la organizacion en las actividades de MC, con el fin de generar un flujo constante de ideas para mejorar e innovar. Sin embargo, sostener en el tiempo estos sistemas no es tarea sencilla. En particular, diversos autores afirman que una de las principales causas que dificultan el exito de estos sistemas es la falta de compromiso de los trabajadores con estas iniciativas. Por tanto, poder medir los principales factores que afectan la participacion de los empleados en los sistemas de MC, permitira avanzar en la investigacion para aumentar la eficacia de los sistemas de MC

EFECTOS EN LA CALIDAD DEL TRABAJO PERSONAL DE UNA ORGANIZACIÓN QUE RESPETA LAS NORMAS: Una verificación experimental

The present paper aims to study if an environment where the employees perceive that they are working in a dutiful work environment with all standards promoted by the organization improves operation quality and employee reliability. A laboratory experiment was conducted, where participants performing a simple task in a highly controlled environment were sorted into two different treatments: (a) an environment where the participants perceive that they are working in a dutiful work environment with organizational standards (DST); and (b) an environment where the employees are conscious that the organization does not demand the fulfillment of some standards promoted by the organization (NDST). Results show that both individuals, with high and low conscientiousness, are more reliable in a dutiful work environment than in a non-dutiful work environment. It is also important to highlight that in NDST environment, ie that the organization does not provide the means to fulfil all the standards promoted, the conscientious people are harmed by generating more errors than in a DST environment.