Bhala Kanade, manager of continuous improvement for Shell Downstream, considers the concept of what organizations need to do to embrace continuous improvement "a very simple model."
"Continuous improvement organizations, in my mind, have a very clear vision of where they want to go," Kanade said. "They know very deeply their current situation, and so they know what gap exists. They close this gap by applying PDCA (planning, doing, checking and acting) cycles. And in doing so, they learn."
Discussing challenges Shell has experienced along the company's continuous improvement journey, Kanade said the journey is going well so far, though not perfectly.
The first challenge, he said, resided in the leadership sector, specifically in what Kanade called "leadership churn."
"New leaders coming into the organization [are] not really familiar with what's been done, the background and the vision, and then bring in additional initiatives and take focus away from what we've already set as objectives," he said at the Operational Excellence in Oil and Gas Summit held recently in Houston. "This has required us to work with the new leaders to make them see what's in it for them."
Ultimately, Kanade said, continuous improvement is a driver of success for all personnel.
"We wanted to make sure the new leaders who came in clearly saw the continuous improvement being rolled out is going to lead to their successful delivery. Connecting deeply to the success of the people -- all of the people," he said, is essential.
Integrating continuous improvement into daily operations also proved to be a challenge, Kanade added.
"When we started putting into practice the basic foundational continuous improvement items, people started thinking of them as 'good practices,'" he said, noting some workers interpreted those implementations as optional. "We worked with the front-line leaders a lot, bringing them into discussions and really driving that into their ways of working, as opposed to leaving it to them to carry on."
Culture building, Kanade said, is an ongoing process.
"It's not easy to let go of what you've been doing for years and years and then change your ways of working to something new," he admitted. "We made this journey in five years, so it's still something that we have to continuously work on to ensure we don't [fall] back into old ways of doing things, the way we've always done."
Additionally, although some of the key personnel brought in to implement continuous improvement "had great knowledge," Kanade said they "played a very consultative type of role with less skin in the game, so we had to work to ensure they were in on the action; they were partners, not consultants, and part of the success of the group."
Measuring continuous improvement
Kanade emphasized the importance of connecting continuous improvement to the broader operational excellence journey.
"In the end, I don't think of continuous improvement as a strategy. I see continuous improvement as an enabler of the strategy," he said. "It's a way to deliver whatever goal you have, whatever strategy you want to execute to make a business successful."
Kanade also cautioned against setting targets "based on 'how many thousands' you deliver and how many value stream maps you completed, versus how much business value that generated and how much work it took out."
Alternately, Kanade encouraged leaders to consider more esoteric determiners when measuring continuous improvement.
"Are we being successful in terms of value delivery? Are we being successful in terms of culture building? Are we being successful in terms of capability building?" he queried. "It's not rocket science."
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