Successful Change Management

Operations has learned the new competitive lesson, which the remaining functional areas are just waking up to  

Continuous improvement (change) is critical in a global economy. Changes should include product innovation, process innovation (what the Japanese are good at), technology innovation, time-to-market innovation (as seen in Taiwan), marketing innovation, and many others. 

Before we discuss some of the change models specifically, let us first examine some of the psychology behind change. 

Remember the change function shown in Chart 2.6. We start by operating at a steady-state, stable level of operation, and then change is implemented. 

Reinventing Lean - Introducing Lean Management into the Supply Chain 

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The success of validation maintenance is contingent upon a comprehensive and far-reaching change management system. 

Benefits of a Successfully Implemented Change Management System... 

Compliance to federal regulations is the law in our industry—it is not optional. A successfully implemented change management system will enable us to follow that law and partner with the FDA to responsibly market products to the general public that are safe and of the highest quality. 

Change is critical to future business success. It enables us to adapt to the evolving conditions all around us. By having an effective change management system you take the chaos out of the process and can clearly evaluate the impact of each change proposed. 

Adequate change management can also reveal whether or not the problem was correctly identified and the corrective action was appropriate. A number of changes to the same product or process conducted in succession may indicate that the problem has not been investigated properly and that corrective actions were not appropriate. 

Quality Assurance within an IT environment is as much a culmral issue as a technical one. Change management skills are vital to successfully estabhsh and maintain a quality culmre. A formal quality assurance program is hkely to be seen as an unnecessary and expensive add-on with little or no return on cost. It will not be readily understood that quality assurance programs significantly avoid or reduce costs that are due to infrastructure failures and their resolution. 

A chief executive and his fellow managers can either give minimum commitment to the safety movement or maximum commitment and support. A successful change of safety culture needs both initial and ongoing management support as well as buy-in from the unions and employees. Line management must take the lead and be active participants. 

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