ABSTRACT
This chapter describes the third step in the systematic improvement planning (SIP) pattern: understand analysis and determine operational leverages. While the second step determines the improvement targets, the third step concentrates on understanding how successful one can be in meeting these targets under current conditions and how they can be sustained in the future by: determining the basis of measurement and analysis, prioritizing the improvement areas and focusing on sources, and determining the best operational improvement leverages. Afterwards, analyze findings and identify potential operational improvements. In this step, by using the results of measurements, various dimensions of critical losses affecting improvement targets of the business that one have set in the previous step are determined. To solve the problems permanently, the causes rather than the symptoms of the problems should be eliminated. In this step, the measurements will be evaluated with respect to the employees, organization, procedures, facilities, technologies, and materials.
