Linking continuous improvement (CI) through a company’s culture to its strategic business goals is imperative to the successful implementation of CI. For example, General Electric links forty percent of top management bonuses to successful implementation of CI. Without such linkage, CI is short-lived and yields unsustainable results.
In this article, we describe how a low performing department at a major independent gas distributorship became an internal benchmark for its company.
nexAir (www.nexair.com), a Memphis, TN based company with revenues over $100 million, is a dominant factor in the industrial gas markets in the southeastern United States. (See “nexAir Builds for the Future,” Cryo- Gas, March 2008, p. 36.) Beginning in 2008 nexAir enlisted Bob Werner and Jonda Vance of EG International (EGI) (www.edwards grp.com) and embarked on a continuous improvement journey that resulted in an improved business platform. That success resulted from: nexAir’s changing culture (see “Culture: The Linchpin of Continuous Improvement,” EGI August/September 2011, pp. 68-69); a committed top management that empowered employees and established accountability through key performance objectives (see “Linking Strategy and Continuous Improvement to Achieve Superior Performance,” EGI June 2011, pp. 40–42); and a manager that became a leader.
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