Quality improvement using visual management techniques

Abstract

The fundamental activities of a business can be summarized as being a cycle of strategy development and implementation, operations design and management and finally performance measurement, which feeds back into strategy design. This research aims to determine whether visual management can assist the quality motive by adding value to the above‐mentioned business activities for start‐up businesses and strategic business units within the South African context. The main topics to be addressed are performance management and visual management (VM). Performance management entails investigating the concept of strategy, its formulation and eventual implementation; performance measurement; improvement initiatives and greater quality theory. Visual management will be introduced as an angle on corporate communication and the importance of sharing information indiscriminately throughout the organisation. Both empirical and non-­‐empirical research methods are used to answer the question of the impact of VM on business activities. The first involves a theoretical synthesis from the literature, the second was based on interviews with professionals from the relevant industries, the third is content analysis of the above.