Tillämpning av utvärdering inom operativt förbättringsarbete

Sammanfattning: In the fall of 2014 a literature review and a scientific study of the topic; "... in the extent to which companies in the industry applies the evaluation of continuous improvement” was conducted at Mälardalen University. These studies are the foundation of this thesis. A strategic improvement is often divided into smaller steps of improvements at each hierarchical level from the top down through the organization. But if there is no response system that can confirm the results of these improvements back through the organization it is very hard to see if the improvements really are improvements or just changes and a waste of resources. To make it possible for a companies to know if they have achieved their desired future state of such improvements it is required that an evaluation of the operational improvement outcomes is carried out, which can be reflected back through the hierarchy. Through an interview study, involving five companies, the thesis aims to examine to what extent well-established companies in Sweden apply evaluation within their operational improvement processes. The thesis also aims to examine what value-added effect that these evaluations have in such companies. The conclusions of the thesis are tied to the analysis of the research literature in the field of improvement evaluation, together with the analysis of the interview study. The interview study was decided to be carried out in an overt way but also confidential. A department manager and an operator from each company participated in the interview study which was formed on the basis of the literature review but also on the basis of pre-determined methods of analysis. The interview study was semi-structured in order to allow flexibility in the interview dialogues and to get a better overall understanding of the respondent’s viewpoints. Both a quantitative and a qualitative approach were used in the analysis in order to enable multiple angles. To answer the question, to what extent well-established companies in Sweden apply the evaluation within their operational improvement processes, a conclusion is made that the companies did not apply evaluation in any regular or standardized manner. Since the companies apply evaluation in their operational improvement processes in such limited manner there was according to all the respondents no value-added effect of evaluation for the investigated companies. Even though there were no value-added effect the importance of evaluation within the operational improvement processes were clearly expressed by all respondents and the scientific literature analyzed in the thesis.