Welcome to the Official CIC Web Site
If you are here, then you've probably already heard a bit about the Continuous Improvement Consortiums. If you haven't heard about them but are interested, you are also in luck. All will be explained. To put it simply, Continuous Improvement Consortiums are the next step in the evolution of Lean/CI practices implementation and sutainability. A place for Lean/CI professionals in a local market to get together in a safe environment with their peers, at a great value, share learning, coach and mentor each other, network, and assess and benchmark their progress, all facilitated by world class operations professionals from Optima Associates.

What is a Continuous Improvement Consortium?
Where are the Continuous Improvement Consortiums?
How can I get a Continuous Improvement Consortium setup in my area?
Who are Optima Associates?
Fact sheet for the Continuous Improvement Consortium


What is a Continuous Improvement Consortium?
             
              "You see a brick wall..."
              "We see a cost effective way to help you on your journey of implementing
               Lean and Continuous Improvement Principles."

The Optima Continuous Improvement Consortium - A place where Lean and Continuous Improvement Professionals can discuss ideas, provide and receive coaching and mentoring with their peers, and do benchmarking to help them improve their own organizations.

As a Lean/CI professional, you know that the path isn't always straight, and that implementing and sustaining Lean and CI practices is a journey. Lean enterprise, Six Sigma, ISO, Theory of Constraints, Toyota Production system, JIT, Continuous flow, High Performance Culture, Kaizen, Continuous Improvement, 5S … 'just a few things to understand, implement, and sustain.

The CI Consortium brings together motivated local organizations who are on the Continuous Improvement journey and who want to continue making progress. You meet on a regular basis and share, coach and learn in a facilitated and safe environment with your peers. The members drive the learning agenda. Optima provides facilitation, assessments and benchmarking so you know where you are on the journey.


CIC : The Process
The details are pretty simple. We help bring together 10-14 local non-competing companies who are on the Continuous Improvement journey into a group. You dedicate 2 individuals from your organization to be CIC representatives and to carry learning and progress back and forth between your organization and the CIC. You set the agendas, you share your journey, and we help facilitate and assess/benchmark.

Together we commit to 16.5 days a year of sharing, coaching, assessing and learning, structured like this:

7.5 days Member Board and Site Meetings
2 Planning meetings and 6 onsite member meeting/tour events. Meetings take place about every one and a half months with two meetings focusing mainly on the programs and direction, and the other focusing on sharing and learning while on members own sites.

3 days Lean Assessment, Value Stream Mapping and Strategic Roadmap
Optima carries out a detailed diagnostic assessment and site value stream of your operation. We benchmark how your company compares on a World Class/Best of Class scale, provide a roadmap for future planning, and set the base from where your company can benchmark itself and compare to others companies in the CIC. These assessments will be carried out each year.

4 days Special Interest Meetings
These are shared learning programs for all the members of the CIC provided by Optima. The specific topics will be determined based on the counsel of the members. Such as TPM, Kanban, VSM, etc.

2 days Customized Learning Program
These days are focused on your organization, are intended to follow-up the assessments, and are tailored specifically to your organizations needs. However, you can also share these with other members and extend the number of days of support you receive. Your special interest days can be used for general consulting, planning, training of employees, or other areas that we agree upon.

Web Portal
A shared learning resource for all members of a CIC. It contains member content, Optima content and third party content, blogging, webinars, member contact information and other information that the members find helpful.

Offline Coaching and Networking
And, of course, you can network offline with the other members of the Consortium to help solve common issues or share solutions as you move along in the journey.


The Benefits and Cost

The Optima Continuous Improvement Consortium: A place where Lean and Continuous Improvement Professionals can discuss ideas, provide and receive coaching and mentoring with their peers, and do benchmarking to help them improve their own organizations. Focused on and driven by Lean and Continuous Improvement principles

The Optima Continuous Improvement Consortium is based on a 20 years and running Canadian model, proven by 2 years of successful U.S. implementation by Optima, and facilitated by Lean and CI professionals with vast industry experience

Features:

Membership Fees are $1,200 per month, paid on the 1st day of each quarter or monthly if preferred.

If you are interested in either facilitating or joining a CIC in an area that doesn't currently have one, please fill out the form below and an Optima representative will contact you shortly.