Welcome to Target Online:
Your Improvement Resource
Market leadership demands strong, consistent focus on improvement throughout your organization. To help you engage your associates in this quest, the Association for Manufacturing Excellence (AME) is introducing Target Online, a monthly resource featuring timely articles about effective leadership, organizations achieving world-class performance, essential improvement concepts and tools, and the dedication required to stay on this challenging course.
We are committed to providing value through information and “lessons learned” that you can adapt and use in your own organization in Target Online.
• Employee engagement in all areas of the organization powers Ventana Medical Systems’ lean progress. Cultural beliefs – align to shine, everyone counts, involve others, act on fact -- provide a foundation for their lean journey.
• Leaders seeking better ways to nurture a culture of continuous improvement – essential for top organizational performance – will find several critical questions for this quest in the article, “Leadership and Enterprise-Wide Employee Engagement.” Professor Al Filardo of the Filardo Group shares insights on making excellence a habit to encourage new individual and team behaviors.
• In “Escape the Improvement Trap,” Michael Bremer, principal of The Cumberland Group, offers suggestions for distinguishing an elite organization from average performers: Make sure customer value drives improvement, engage people’s passion and creativity, establish key metrics, develop process thinking/understanding capabilities, and establish an executive mindset.
• To gain active employee buy-in for improvement initiatives, respect for people is essential. That’s the counsel of Linda Taylor, Raytheon Missile Systems. “Remember that respect develops trust, and trust leads to risk-taking, and risk-taking leads to innovation and growth,” said Taylor, a presenter in the recent AME Champion’s Club meeting in Tucson, AZ.
As AME continues its evolution in response to customer demand, we will offer insights about performance gains in manufacturing as well as in healthcare, government, and other arenas. We are reaching out to you, reflecting AME’s mission: to inspire commitment to enterprise excellence through shared learning and access to best practices. You are important to our success as we share updates on improving competitiveness through excellent customer service, organizational success stories, and core essentials of excellence.
We welcome your comments, suggestions for future coverage, and feedback about your challenges and experiences. We also encourage you to share this email with your associates and fellow stakeholders in enterprise excellence.
