Improvement Insights Blog

Recessions are a great time to improve quality. Here’s why:

“Hi, I’m Jay Arthur, author of “Lean Six Sigma Demystified” and QI Macros [software].

“Now [at first in] the pandemic, everybody projected that this was going to be one of the sharpest recessions in history, and then bounce right back. I think the ongoing concern about Coronavirus and everything else is actually going to slow that down a little bit.

“Well, one of the things I know from going through lots of recessions so far is that is the perfect time to take a step back from your business. When you take a step back from your business you can start to look at it and [think], “How can we make it faster, better, cheaper? How could we reduce delay, defects, and deviation? How can we make it better for our customer when we come back, so that when we come back we come back so strong they [say] ‘Oh my gosh, we’ve got to work with those folks because they’re just the best in the industry at this.’”

“Now is the time to take a little step back and focus on a few key things: The 4% that’s causing 50% of the waste and rework. The 4% of what you do that is most of the delays. Now is the time to redesign your systems to achieve outcomes that you haven’t really had time to think about when in the go-go days of this whole process.

“That’s my Improvement Insight for this week: Now is the perfect time to roll those tools out and start making improvements, right? Usually when something slows down like this the very lean companies start cleaning the factory or they start training the employees or they do something to use that time wisely to simplify, streamline, optimize what you’re doing.

“That’s my Improvement Insight for this week: Now’s the perfect time to start creating a hassle-free America. I don’t believe everybody has to know everything to improve anything, you only need a handful of tools to make big progress.

“Let’s create a hassle-free America, hassle-free healthcare. Let’s go out and improve something this week.”