What are the Improvement Ideas?

 Today, every day, in your company, dozens of ideas come up and fade away without ever being exposed, although they could have brought you a benefit in performance and competitiveness.

These ideas sometimes simple and low-cost can usually be implemented in a matter of days.

In order to do it, you need to give your collaborators a way to :

1. Express and formalize their ideas.

2. Decide which  idea should be implemented or not.

3. have the resources needed to implement the ideas once they are validated.

The "classic" idea box was a low efficiency solution: left in a corner, often forgotten by all and looked at without confidence.

Today, we offer you a simple solution, allowing to collect and manage the ideas issued by your teams, a solution that favors dialogue and transparency while applying the retained ideas.

This tool is called IdeasMine, the idea box of the XXIst century.

IdeasMine allows to fully explore the power of collaborative ideas from all your collaborators.

IdeasMine Why ?

•                                                          It allows each person to be an Actor of Progress.
•                                                  It stimulates the initiatives, the creativity and the know-how development.
•                                                  It helps the Manager to develop the participation of all his Collaborators.
•                                                 It creates an additional opportunity for dialogue between the Manager and his Collaborators.
•       It accelerates the deployment of the necessary Progress in order to reach our objectives.
•    It develops involvement and valorizes the Actors of Progress.
•  It improves the work conditions.

To suggest, to implement an Idea, it means to contribute to the Dynamic Progress of the Company!

Definition

We call Improvement Idea any progress idea that aims to improve:

• Work conditions
• Processes
• Productivity
• Quality
• Costs and delays
• Security
• Environment
  
  
  

Application scope

The IdeasMine system concerns all the staff (management teams, employees, temporary workers...) from service industries, administrative,support teams,engineering & sales departments ...

Interfaces

• The IdeasMine platform on Intranet / Extranet.
• E-mail for notifications creation/ ideas and comments modifications.
  
  
  

Each user's role

Three actors participate in Ideasmine: the admnistrator, the manager and the author.

Ideasmine has integrated features of friendliness, tasks relief in order to insert it  naturally in the daily activities of the main actors.

THE ADMINISTRATOR

• Ensures the whole IdeasMine system is working properly.
• It ensures the natural involvement from a maximum number of authors ideas by exmination of submitted ideas, recording links with similar ideas or in synergy.
• Ideasmine helps the administrator by reminder and an automatic linking of the ideas issuers. Much of the animation is done automatically by regular customised information for authors on the status of their ideas, their synergy with others. At the end of the process, individual ideas may eventually come together to be taken over by the issuers or actors concerned.
• Has no hierarchical position in any specific sector.
• Is the interface between employees and support functions to facilitate the communication between the different actors and enhance the dynamics of the system.The reports available on Ideasmine help him in this process. This approach allows him to validate the ideas and group of ideas selected.
• Defines and validates the monthly report that is transmitted to the HR Department, to the site responsibles and the supervisors.
• Organizes the communication all around the IdeasMine system in connection with the communication service.

THE MANAGER

• It supports the dynamics evolution around an idea or a group of validated ideas and records each stage reached to implementation. Ideasmine helps him by automatic information about the stage reached.
• Helps the authors if they ask for it, to write their ideas.
• Values the work of his entire team with comments about the indicators at meetings.These indicators are provided by Ideasmine.

THE AUTHOR

• Participates in the system posting ideas regularly.Ideasmine provides to the administrator automatic features to involve authors and give them the status of their ideas, the ideas in synergy and others. This allows the author to interact naturally with others.
• Brings his support to the manager associated to his idea, in order to facilitate the implementation.
• Ideasmine informs him regularly of the progress of his ideas.

THE IDEAS

The lifecycle of an Idea for improvement follows 4 steps :

• Submitted Idea.
• Idea in study.
• Idea on implementation.
• Idea implemented.

In case of impossibility, the idea could eventually be classified as "discarded".

1. The Idea is posted with the "POST IDEA" form in the system.
2. The Idea is studied by other authors and by the administrator. If the decision « retained / discarded » requires a deeper study, the author must obtain a 1st response within 8 days. The idea changes its state to "on study".The author is automatically being informed of this evolution.
3. The Idea is implementable. The manager and the implementation deadline are defined. The Idea changes state to "on Implementation" for a maximum of 3 months. If this deadline is not respected, the idea  returns to the manager who has to give an answer within 4 days.
4. The Idea is implemented.The author is being informed about the fact that the Idea reaches the state "Implemented". After that it will be archived.
5. If the idea is not implementable, the administrator will explain the reasons to the author and will classify the idea as "ideas not retained". Then it will  be archived. The administrator  thanks the author and encourages him to continue his participation in the collective process.

How the system works

The IdeasMine system is made of :

• An Intranet / Extranet module.
• A document concerning the application methodology.
• A User Guide.
• A Moderator Guide.

The Extranet / Intranet module:

This system is provided to you as a hosted service. In this case, your company will be able to access it through a link like this :

http://mycompany.ideasmine.net

This space is reserved for you and there are security systems in place to guarantee the confidentiality of your data.

The system can be customized according to your company graphics.

IDEASMINE is very easy to use and can be tested here.

The methodology :

A result of our 20 years-experience of tools  implementation in industrial productivity, this document details the essential steps to start the system. It will allow you to save valuable time and to avoid the usual drawbacks.

The User/Moderator Guides :

These documents are identical to the documents used by Al Consulting consultants during their consulting and training missions to set up and use a system of improvement ideas.

They will allow to explain to all staff what an idea for improvement is, what are the issues  in the system, and why everyone should participate.

The document for the managers/administrators highlights the importance of their role for the success of the action and also the tasks that they will have to accomplish.