Mid Green occupation

Business and administration

Improvement specialist

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Leading the deployment of improvement strategies.

Summary

Improvement Specialists are responsible for leading the deployment of improvement strategy, for training others and for providing broad and deep technical expertise in advanced and complex Lean and Six Sigma, Project and Change Management principles and tools to enable identification and delivery of improvement opportunities aligned to key business goals. Improvement Specialists typically report to Improvement Leaders who develop the improvement strategy and governance processes, and who provide technical guidance on advanced analysis. Improvement Specialists manage (directly and/or matrix) Improvement Practitioners who lead smaller improvement projects aligned to the improvement strategy. A typical ratio of Improvement Specialists to Improvement Practitioners in an organisation could be 1:10. In comparison with the work of an Improvement Practitioner, Improvement Specialists draw on their advanced knowledge and skills in applying Improvement principles and tools across a range of programmes/ projects/areas to build the capability of others. They also swiftly visualise processes, problems and opportunities and use both graphical and statistical analysis to deliver improvements. They work closely with other Improvement Specialists to support the delivery of improvement strategy, working on multiple simultaneous projects linked to key business objectives, identifying and engaging both subject matter experts and key stakeholders. Their work generally requires them to interact with others but typically involves a high-degree of autonomy.

Typical job titles include

Knowledge, skills and behaviours (KSBs)

K1:

Leading improvement teams: Personality types, team development stages, motivational techniques, situational leadership, learning styles, mentoring models

K2:

Project planning: Multi-element business case, financial plan, benefits realisation plan, risk management plan, project plan

K3:

Project reviews & coaching: Coaching models, Maslow’s hierarchy of needs

K4:

Change planning: Change management methods, impact/readiness, influencing strategies

K5:

Commercial environment: Business and economic risks including changes in legislation, government regulation or trading condidtions that can impact all aspects of improvement from Project Selection through to selection/implementation of improvements

K6:

Principles & methods for Improvement: How to apply Improvement Methods (eg. Practical Problem Solving, Define-Measure-Analyse-Improve-Control, 8-Disciplines, Identify-Define-Optimise-Verify) across all functions, policy deployment principles, Lean culture

K7:

Voice of the customer: Interviewing and focus groups, Quality Function Deployment principles and how to build a House of Quality

K8:

Process mapping & analysis: Activity network diagrams, design structure matrix, process modelling, key function diagrams and analysis

K9:

Data acquisition planning: Stratification, rational sub-groups, power and sample size

K10:

Statistics & measures: Probability distributions and how to test for fit of probability distributions to data. Confidence intervals, central limit theorem. How to test data for stability and normaility and strategies for dealing with non-stable or non-normal data

K11:

Lean concepts and tools: Principles of Lean Thinking and Lean tools including origins and cultural aspects critical to successful application within an organisation.

K12:

Measurement system analysis: Repeatability & Reproducibility analysis. Long term measurement error

K13:

Process capability: Data transformation, life data analysis and prediction

K14:

Root cause analysis: Matrix plots, multi-vari charts, hypothesis testing principles and methods, correlation and regression principles and methods

K15:

Experimentation: Principles of full and fractitional designed experiments including replicates, repeats, randomisation, blocking and centre points, resolution and confounding. Planning and analysis using residuals, main effects & interaction plots, hierarchy of terms, Response Surface Method, Split plots, Analysis of variance (ANOVA). Approaches for model optimisation

K16:

Identification & prioritisation: Creativity tools e.g. theory of inventive problem solving (TRIZ), Pugh matrix

K17:

Failure mode avoidance: System state flow, boundary diagram, interface analysis tables, fault tree analysis, robustness checklist, tolerance design and analysis. Principles and links between Failure Modes and Effects analysis for concepts, designs, processes.

K18:

Sustainability & control: Control and reaction plans. Prevention controls

Technical Educational Products

: ST0555: Improvement specialist (Level 5) Approved for delivery

Reference:: OCC0555

Status:: Approved occupation

Average (median) salary:: £48,383 per year

SOC 2020 code:: 2431 Management consultants and business analysts

SOC 2020 sub unit groups:
- 2431/02 Management advisers and consultants
- 2431/01 Business analysts and consultants
- 2431/03 Risk analysts

S1:

Leading improvement teams: Holding team members/stakeholders to account for delivering agreed actions within an improvement project and building/maintaining appropriate stakeholder relationships inside and outside the organisation to deliver improvement project objectives

S2:

Strategic Deployment of Continuous Improvement: Contribute to deployment of improvement strategy, participating as an active member of the improvement community

S3:

Communication: Prepare and present concise proposals and plans. Capture and share progress through effective formats and channels. Use and handle questions effectively. Build rapport with others.

S4:

Capability Development: Train, facilitate and critique the application of tools used by improvement practitioners including tool-selection, links between tools, how they are used within a structured method, analsysis of results and presentation of recommendations

S5:

Project planning: Plan and manage finances, multi-stakeholder delivery and benefits realisation

S6:

Change planning: Design reinforcement, engagement and communication strategies

S7:

Principles and Methods for Improvement: Guide others on the selection of appropriate methods (eg. Practical Problem Solving, Define-Measure-Analyse-Improve-Control, 8-Disciplines, Identify-Define-Optimise-Verify) to deliver improvements. Conduct gateway assessments to ensure suitability of projects to progress

S8:

Project selection & scope: Guides others on the selection and scoping of improvement projects and the intial response to product/process performance issues. Identify, scope and prioritise improvement opportunities that map to high-level organisation objectives and key value-streams

S9:

Process mapping & analysis: Guide others on the selection of appropriate process mapping and analysis tools. Critique improved state

S10:

Lean tools: Identify and analyse value-streams using appropriate methods and tools to optimise flow to customer. Develop a plan for Lean deployment within the organisation including effective and relevant performance metrics

S11:

Measurement: Guide others on the planning, analysis and interpretation of data collection & measurement studies including the design of tests to recreate failures & steps to diagnose/reduce short & long-term measurement variation

S12:

Statistics & measures: Confirm data and fit for a range distribution models. Establish predictions. Calculate confidence intervals

S13:

Data analysis-statistical methods: Model random behaviour and make inferences with levels of confidence. Calculate/recommend sample size. Test hypotheses for all data types. Assess input/output correlation. Generate, analyse and interpret simple and multiple predictive relationship models

S14:

Process capability & performance: Identify data stability/distribution issues and apply appropriate strategies to enable robust Capability Analysis. Analyse life data to establish rates and patterns

S15:

Root cause analysis: Make appropriate use of data to assess contribution of critical inputs/root cause(s) to product/process performance using appropriate graphical and statistical tools to draw and coomunicate conclusions

S16:

Experimentation & optimisation: Guide others on the planning, analysis and interpretation of experiments. Plan,conduct, analyse and optimise both full & fractional experiments

S17:

Data analysis – Statistical Process Control: Monitor and asses ongoing process variation and changes through chart-selection, control-limit setting, sample sizing/frequency and control-rules

S18:

Benchmarking: Guide others on benchmarking to support all stages of improvement projects including future-state design

S19:

Failure mode avoidance: Decompose complex systems in order to define main functions. Anaylse system interactions. Cascade knowledge through fault tree analysis. Create and assess design rules, standards & verification methods. Complete robustness studies to select appropriate control strategies and detection methods

S20:

Sustainability & control: Guide others on control and sustainability planning including methods and tools to maintain benefits, extraction of learning, replication, sharing and consolidation of new knowledge into organisational learning

Technical Educational Products

: ST0555: Improvement specialist (Level 5) Approved for delivery

Reference:: OCC0555

Status:: Approved occupation

Average (median) salary:: £48,383 per year

SOC 2020 code:: 2431 Management consultants and business analysts

SOC 2020 sub unit groups:
- 2431/02 Management advisers and consultants
- 2431/01 Business analysts and consultants
- 2431/03 Risk analysts

B1:

Drive for results: Co-ordinates and delivers sustained improvement across the business by engaging with, and inspiring stakeholders; adopting a can-do attitude

B2:

Team-working: Leads cross functional project teams proactively, regularly supports others and replicates learning

B3:

Professionalism: Exemplifies high standard of professional integrity, ethics and trust within the organisation, whilst maintaining flexibility to the needs of the business

B4:

Process Thinking: Drives process-thinking and customer-focused, data-driven decision making

B5:

Continuous development: Identifies & models opportunities for development of self & others

B6:

Safe working: Adopts a proactive approach to safety, encouraging others and suggesting compliance improvements

B7:

Leadership: Drive for results with the ability to inspire and support project team members and manage stakeholder relationships. Promote the vision, organisational/project purpose and values. Understand and create the environment for an inclusive and diverse organisational culture.

Technical Educational Products

: ST0555: Improvement specialist (Level 5) Approved for delivery

Reference:: OCC0555

Status:: Approved occupation

Average (median) salary:: £48,383 per year

SOC 2020 code:: 2431 Management consultants and business analysts

SOC 2020 sub unit groups:
- 2431/02 Management advisers and consultants
- 2431/01 Business analysts and consultants
- 2431/03 Risk analysts