Facilitating Operator Participation in Continuous Improvement: An Investigation of Organizational Factors

Continuous improvement (CI) is a fundamental part of lean thinking and practice and will remain critical for the success of manufacturing firms during the fourth industrial revolution. The realization of CI is based on the active participation and involvement of the firm’s entire workforce – with everybody making incremental improvements, every day. This of course includes shop floor operators. In this paper, we explore various aspects that influence the successful involvement of shop floor operators in CI activities, by adopting a case study approach. The case company has achieved only partial success with CI on the shop floor, despite repeated efforts. As a result of the study, several organizational factors emerge as critical success factors for securing involvement and engagement of operators in CI, with positive results. Raising awareness of these critical factors may help manufacturing firms adopt an alternative approach to CI which promises to increase the level of operator participation in CI.