IMPQI295 – Sustain improvement in food operations

Overview 

This standard is about the skills and knowledge needed for you to sustain improvement activities to support your organisation's drive to improve food operations. This is important in increasing productivity and success of manufacture, processing and supply within the food supply chain. It is about helping to maintain the momentum of improvement, the success of activities and the positive impact of change. This is particularly important where improvement programmes involve a range of organisational improvement techniques used in a planned series of areas to improve working practices.

You will need to show and understand how you can manage the coordination and application of an improvement programme to sustain improvement objectives in your area of responsibility. You need to show and understand how you improve the condition and effectiveness of workplace operations by taking action to support progress which is aligned with improvement objectives. You will need to comply with your company policy for improvement, take responsibility for your actions, and refer any issues outside of the limit of your authority to others.

This standard is for you if your role requires you to systematically maintain an improvement programme in food or drink operations including manufacturing, processing, packing or supply chain activities. You may have responsibilities for aspects of organisational improvement in a team leadership or management role.

Performance criteria

You must be able to:

Systematically maintain an improvement programme

  1. obtain improvement programme objectives from the relevant personnel
  2. organise the activities required to support the implementation of improvement techniques
  3. confirm that the implementation of improvement techniques meets organisational needs in accordance with the improvement plan
  4. co-ordinate the activities which are necessary to maintain the improvement programme
  5. monitor the progress of improvement milestones and techniques in accordance with the improvement programme objectives
  6. assess the effectiveness of improvement techniques in accordance with programme objectives
  7. implement mechanisms and provide support to deal with problems that impact on the achievement of programme objectives
  8. maintain the effective visual communication of information and results in accordance with procedures
  9. maintain effective communication to support those involved with the implementation process
  10. provide information to the relevant personnel inform the updating of Standard Operating Procedures 1
  11. communicate any identified training and support needs to the relevant personnel
  12. refer any issues outside the limit of your authority to the relevant personnel

Obtain and provide feedback on sustaining improvement

  1. seek feedback on the value of your contribution to sustaining improvements from the relevant personnel
  2. check current compliance levels and targets in accordance with procedures
  3. provide feedback on your contribution to sustaining improvements and to achieving improvement objectives to the relevant personnel

Knowledge and understanding

You need to know and understand

  1. the organisation's improvement vision, strategy, objectives and the reasons for the implementation of improvement programmes
  2. why it is important to work proactively to sustain improvement practice and the overall improvement programme
  3. why objectives are important to improvement programmes
  4. how to motivate staff and gain their continuing commitment to participate in improvement programmes
  5. the principles and processes that support the sustainability of improvement techniques
  6. how to maintain the effective implementation of individual improvement techniques
  7. how to measure performance in a lean food business environment
  8. how to make adjustments to improvement programmes in the event of unforeseen circumstances
  9. how to monitor and control the implementation of improvement techniques
  10. how to assess programme performance improvements against objectives
  11. the importance of contingency planning and how to plan effectively
  12. how to make critical decisions
  13. the internal and resource barriers to change, and the techniques that deal with these
  14. the techniques used to visually communicate information and sustainability of the improvement process
  15. the formal and informal communication channels used
  16. how to evaluate the success of improvement programme sustainability
  17. the range of information sources available to support sustainability of improvement
  18. how to give and receive feedback about the sustainability of the improvement programme
  19. how to encourage and enable the provision of feedback by those involved in the improvement process, and why this is important

Keywords: Food; Operations; Manufacturing; Excellence; Improvement; Sustain