Abstract:

Modern businesses need to continuously improve their operations. Of course, they have many quality management instruments at their disposal, but they do not always know when and how to use them. The purpose of this paper is to prepare universal guidelines for companies introducing improvement activities. The paper presents a possible way to conduct research that enables easy diagnosis of the areas of operation of a company that require improvement, determination of their importance, and proceeding with their improvement. Moreover, it stimulates employee involvement in the process of improving the functioning of the company, which is consistent with the concept of continuous improvement. For these purpose, qualitative research (survey) was carried out among the personnel of the selected production company. The survey was carried out in few stages (initial and in-depth - regarding selected areas) using appropriately constructed questionnaires. Furthermore, there were carried out analyses of areas that were considered to be improved (information flow and quality of manufacturing processes). The analyses were conducted using quality management tools, such as: process mapping, pFMEA, Pareto-Lorenz diagram and System Utility Scale index.  The presented analyzes confirm the need of introduction changes in the areas indicated by the employees.