Glossary

CI terminology, defined plainly.

The acronyms, frameworks and concepts continuous improvement teams use, explained without jargon.

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A3: One-page problem-solving framework born from the Toyota Production System. Forces clarity by limiting available space — every section earns its place.
Andon: A visual signal — light, board, or alert — that flags a problem on the line so it can be addressed immediately rather than reported later.

Capability footprint: Live view of skills, certifications and competency across a workforce. In OpX, kept current by activity rather than annual surveys.

DMAIC: Define, Measure, Analyse, Improve, Control — the Six Sigma project lifecycle. The default stage-gate model for many CI portfolios.

Gemba: Japanese for 'the real place' — going to where work happens to observe, rather than reasoning from reports. Foundational to lean practice.

Heijunka: Production levelling — smoothing demand and output to reduce variation and waste. Often paired with takt time discipline.

Idea Hopper: OpX OS module for capturing, triaging and routing improvement ideas from frontline contributors. Replaces the spreadsheet that nobody owns.

Kaizen: Continuous, incremental improvement. Often used to describe short-cycle improvement events focused on a specific process or outcome.
Kanban: Visual workflow management using columns to represent stages of work. Limits work-in-progress to expose bottlenecks.

Lean: Practice and methodology focused on waste reduction, flow, and respect for people. Origins in Toyota Production System.

Maturity Assessment: Structured scoring of an organisation's CI capability across defined dimensions. Useful when followed by targets, dates and actions; useless when filed in a deck.
MSA: Master Subscription Agreement — the commercial contract governing a SaaS subscription. OpX MSA defines SLA, data residency, and audit commitments.

OEE: Overall Equipment Effectiveness — a manufacturing metric combining availability, performance and quality. The headline KPI for many production environments.
OKR: Objectives and Key Results — outcome-focused goal framework. Pairs aspirational objectives with measurable key results on a defined cadence.

PDCA: Plan, Do, Check, Act — the Deming improvement cycle. The conceptual ancestor of DMAIC and most modern stage-gate models.
Poka-Yoke: Mistake-proofing — designing processes or tools so that errors are physically or logically prevented rather than caught after the fact.

RAID register: Risks, Assumptions, Issues, Dependencies — a tracking artefact used in programme governance to surface what could derail delivery.
RPO: Recovery Point Objective — the maximum acceptable data loss measured in time. OpX commitment: under 5 minutes.
RTO: Recovery Time Objective — the maximum acceptable downtime before service must be restored. OpX commitment: under 1 hour.

SIPOC: Suppliers, Inputs, Process, Outputs, Customers — a high-level process map used in the Define stage of DMAIC to scope a project.
Six Sigma: Statistical methodology for defect reduction, originally from Motorola. Aims for fewer than 3.4 defects per million opportunities.
SOP: Standard Operating Procedure — a documented, version-controlled instruction for how a task or process is performed.
SoW: Statement of Work — a contracted scope document for bespoke services. OpX MSA Schedule 6 governs custom development under signed SoWs.
SteerCo: Steering Committee — the governance forum where programme decisions are escalated, reviewed and approved.

Takt time: The rate at which work must be completed to meet customer demand. The pacing metric that drives flow design.

Value stream: The end-to-end flow of work that creates value for a customer. The unit of analysis for lean improvement.
VSM: Value Stream Mapping — visual technique for documenting the steps, time and information flows in a value stream. Used to surface waste and design future state.

WIP: Work In Progress — the amount of work currently in flight. Limiting WIP exposes bottlenecks and reduces context-switching.