While deciding which continuous improvement programs are appropriate for your employees, here's some food for thought: According to the IndustryWeek/Manufacturing Performance Institute 2006 Census of Manufacturers, out of 745 respondents, lean manufacturing was the most common method implemented by manufacturers.
Other methods listed were not as widely implemented. A combination of lean and Six Sigma was a distant second -- garnering just 12.4% of responses -- while nearly 20% of respondents say they haven't implemented any continuous improvement methodology.
Here's the complete breakdown of survey responses:
| Continuous Improvement Method Implemented | Percentage Of Respondents |
| Lean manufacturing | 40.5% |
| Lean and Six Sigma | 12.4% |
| Total quality management | 9.9% |
| Agile manufacturing | 3.8% |
| Toyota Production System | 3.1% |
| Six Sigma | 3.1% |
| Theory of Constraints | 3.0% |
| Other | 5.2% |
| No Methodology | 19.1% |
See Also
