The BASICS Handbook is designed to show personnel at all levels within a manufacturing operations environment that, with easy to understand continuous improvement tools, they can make a difference to operational performance where safety, quality, cost, delivery, and people are paramount to business success. The tools and techniques throughout, based upon examples from the author’s experience, demonstrate that no matter what industry, they can bring the desired added value.

This book will help any manufacturing shop floor add value in terms of quality/cost and delivery performance. It will also show how using tools and techniques from the “coal face” out will improve process performance by using simple data collection and measurement – not only on outputs, but just as importantly on “critical to quality inputs” such as process parameters and their processing windows – to deliver the desired output KPIs. The power and confidence that this gives to local experts and processing teams enable them to make informed decisions, preventing drifts and non-conforming product: prevention being better than cure.

The result of these changes is a tangible cultural impact on the shop floor, raising the level at which operating teams work and improving morale. BASICS will enable staff at all levels to understand their performance measures and produce sustainable results. The book contains practical tools, methods, and techniques that have been tried and tested by the author over a successful 30-year career as a contractor transforming variable processing and inconsistent KPI results.