• Glossary

Continual Improvement:  An approach, philosophy and culture within a company that enables it to make small and large improvements with the key objectives of reducing cost and improving the customer experience.  Such improvements are considered “Business as usual” in response to internal improvement opportunities and ever changing customer/stakeholder expectations.
Continual Improvement Framework:   A management system that permits the organization to practice Continual Improvement.  Claritas Consulting goes beyond the traditional hard “mechanisms” to elements covering employee engagement, reward and recognition, stakeholder engagement, team dynamics and situational leadership so that the Continual Improvement Framework is customized and robust for your company. 
Critical Success Factors (CSFs): CSFs are the essential areas of activity that must be performed well if you are to achieve the objectives of your business or project.    In Claritas we believe that “CSF thinking” is vital for developing an accurate Performance Management Scorecard, and also for confirming alignment of operations to Business Strategy.
Defect: Non-conformity to specification introduced into a product during manufacturing.  At Claritas we believe that the term “Defect” must be used to characterise any flaw, error, mistake in Services – so that the same level of intolerance is demonstrated by the Service Industry as in Product manufacturing.
Deviation:  A measure of variation from the Average.  Whilst your local Pizza Outlet may claim an average time of 6 minutes  from entering the  outlet and taking it away, you may notice that there are times when  you take it away in less than 4, and at times you take as long as 20 minutes.  Customers are not pained by averages but by deviation.  Claritas Consulting emphasis the reduction in deviation in all the different Services and tool sets we use.
First Pass Yield: A percentage that represents the extent to which a product or service is delivered without any rework/defects/errors. 
Gemba:  Japanese term that means workplace – the actual place where the work is performed.
Horizontal Deployment:  The process of extending a limited implementation “over a smaller area” to the rest of the company. In the Claritas Kaizen approach, we often do an implementation over a smaller area of the organisation as part of the LEAN or Six Sigma workout.
Ishikawa Diagram: A “cause and effect” diagram that looks like a fishbone used for Root Cause Analysis, At Claritas, we combine the Ishikawa with the 5 Whys and the NGT ( Nominal Group Technique) –maximizing the potential of the technique.
Kaizen: A Japanese term formed from Kai (“change”)  and Zen (“good”), meaning “Change for Good”.  For example, Gemba Kaizen refers to “Change for Good at the actual place of work”.
KAIZEN Institute:  A leading International Institution established by Sensei Masaaki Imai to help Non-Japanese companies introduce kaizen concepts, systems and tools.  As a consultant, Sensei Imai assisted more than 200 foreign and joint-venture companies with Kaizen or Lean.     The KAIZEN Institute is an Alliance Partner of Claritas Consulting. The objective of Claritas Consulting, in alliance with Kaizen Institute is to assist Clients in reducing their Operating Cost and enhancing their efficiency with minimum of capital investment.
Muri: The Japanese term for strain.  Any over exertion or usage of machines and men over capacity is considered Muri.   Muri can be avoided through standarisation of work.
Mura: The Japanese term for variation.   Mura is eliminated by improving work practices.
Muda: The Japanese term for waste.  “Waste” or Muda is any activity in your company that the customer is unwilling to pay for.  For example, waiting in a queue to buy a ticket would be considered wasteful, whereas the actual viewing of the movie would be considered as something “value adding” for which the customer is willing to pay.
Modified Nominal Group Technique (NGT):  Claritas Consulting customised approach to NGT (see below). 
Nominal Group Technique (NGT):  A brain storming exercise which captures the views and ideas of all individuals, before the group engages collectively in brainstorming.    The NGT adds significantly to the richness and quality of brainstorming.
Non-Value Adding Activity:  An established definition of wasteful processing from the discipline of Operational Improvement.  This is the same as Muda which we defined earlier.
Operating Model:  An Operating model describes how an organisation works.  How an organisation works can be represented either functionally (Functional Model) or cross-functionally (Value Chain & Value Streams).  Claritas Consulting emphasis the cross functional “process view” as the best approach to aligning operations to strategy.
Operational Excellence:  Where an organisation serves its customers and supports its employees through a programme of leadership and teamwork that focuses on continuous and substained improvement to achieve competitve advantage.  This involves each employee understanding the customer delivery value chain and ensuring that it operates optimally at all times through eliminating defects and Non Value Add activities. Drives the enterprise to consistently do  the right things well.
Process Performance Indicators (PPIs):  A set of “well considered” lag and lead measures within a process.  The PPIs are used to examine the alignment of operations to strategy, besides being used for managing the process.  At Claritas Consulting we believe that any Operational Improvement must result in measurable changes to the PPIs.
Project Charters: A template used to set the scope and term of Reference of a Lean, Six Sigma, BPI, BPR or any other Improvement Initiative. 
Root Cause Analysis:  Root cause analysis (RCA) is a technique aimed at identifying the root causes of problems or symptoms.  By doing this, we go beyond fixing the symptoms and actually ensuring the problem or symptom does not repeat again.
Value Chain: A representation of the “flow of work”– showing how value is added to the final product or service delivered to the Customer. The Value Chain is introduced by Claritas as an integral element of the strategic Six Sigma or Lean program that you may consider.
Value Add Ratio:   A percentage that represents the time spent adding value to a product or service, divided by the total process end to end time.  VAR = Value Added Time/ total cycle time * 100. 
Value Stream: The specific processes or “streams of work” employed in a Value Chain. At Claritas we believe that a shared understanding of these Value Streams, their current performance, and targets are important large scale Operational Improvement or Operational Excellence.
Value Stream Mapping:  A way of graphically depicting the Value Stream using symbols and notation. Claritas help you customize your symbols and notation to suit your industry and company.