At Herman Miller, the answer to that question turned out to be more than anyone expected.

Employees on one chair production line identified more than 1,000 small improvements – in a single year. And here’s the surprising part: On average, each improvement saved just half a second.

Hardly earth-shattering, right? Why would anyone even bother with a bunch of trivial improvements like that? Individually, most of them didn’t amount to much – but the cumulative impact was mind-blowing.

Collectively, they produced a 60% increase in production capacity and more than $1 million in annual savings.

That’s a striking example of a principle at the heart of our model for Systematic Continuous Improvement (SCI).

Most organizations focus their improvement efforts on big problems and major initiatives. Meanwhile, employees encounter smaller opportunities every day – an unnecessary step, a recurring delay, a missed handoff, a tool that’s never where it should be … on and on.

The main reason companies don’t seize those opportunities is two-fold:

1. They don’t think small improvements are worth the time and effort.

2. They don’t have a routine process for taking advantage of them.

Fact is, if you give people a method to regularly identify, implement and track small improvements, the results can compound in astonishing ways no one could predict.

The compelling lesson from Herman Miller? Not every improvement needs to be a game-changer.It’s just the opposite. Sometimes, half a second is a good place to start.

If you’d like to explore how SCI routines can engage your teams in generating results like that …

Click on the link below – and let’s talk!

Begin your improvement journey today!

Getting better at getting better.