S-E-A-R-C-H! Your Ideas: A Structured Idea Generation Technique for Process Improvement

Abstract

The origin of process improvement can be traced back to 18^th century, when Eli Whitney invented machine to remove seeds from cotton, making it the first automated process. Since then, the process improvement evolved over time, focusing on mass production to quality improvement to cost efficiency. Many methods such as Six Sigma, TQM, TPM, Lean, etc., along with its own stack of tools, were developed to improve the efficiency of the process improvements initiatives. Irrespective of the methods and its tools, every process improvement starts by understanding the problem, analyzing it, identifying solution, implementing it and sustaining it. While varied tools and techniques were created or adapted for identifying, analyzing problem and implementing solution, the area of identifying solution is left to the creativity of the human race. One of the most commonly used method for identifying solution – Brainstorming, comes with its own inherent flaws and fallacies. To counter the shortcomings of brainstorming and to create an analytical approach to idea generation, the S-E-A-R-C-H technique is introduced in this paper. In a much easy to remember mnemonics, the S-E-A-R-C-H technique would help both individual and team to come up with ideas that could improve the process and achieve the process improvement objective in short time.