Visual management, performance management and continuous improvement

What is it about?

The purpose of the paper is to study the interconnections between Visual Management (VM), Performance Management (PM) and Continuous Improvement (CI) programs and to suggest a practical framework to establish an effective Visual Management program in association with Performance Management and Continuous Improvement systems. We describe an effective framework to harmonies the performance management, visual management and continuous improvement initiatives into one coherent program. We have refereed to this framework as Integrated Visual Management. The research is based on a case study which was performed in PACCAR Australia (Kenworth Trucks). It also includes a literature review on performance management, visual management and continuous improvement.

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Why is it important?

Adopting a holistic approach to performance management, visual management and continuous improvement and harmonizing them into one coherent system allows for significantly better results. While visual management, performance management and team or company continuous improvement programs each served a benefit individually, when they were linked together, as a whole, their synergy allowed for more significant achievements. Visual management can provide a simple and yet effective solution to enhance information flow in organisations. However, for visual management to yield its full benefit, it needs be part of a bigger plan. It has to be linked to a performance management program, which provides input into visual management, and a continuous improvement initiative, which receives inputs from visual management. This paper proposes a practical framework to establish an integrated visual management program and provides a detailed description of its phases. The paper also presents the results achieved, during our case study, and views on the integration benefits as well as on how to successfully implement an IVM program. We followed a systematic approach to establish an effective integrated visual management system. It laid a solid foundation in order to facilitate an effective flow of information in QA in its respective areas. Our program not only improved our understanding of our processes and raised awareness about our performance and associated issues, it also boosted transparency, discipline, shared ownership, team involvement, and scientific mindset. It assisted us to achieve significant and concrete process improvements. It helped us to establish a productive Continuous Improvement (CI) program.

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