How you’d get this certificate
- Zavmo teaches you. You learn the units one-to-one with an AI tutor, on your own work.
- You register with an approved centre. That is a college, training provider or employer Highfield Qualifications has approved to offer this qualification. Zavmo is not an approved centre, so you register with them, not with us.
- The centre assesses, and Highfield Qualifications awards. A qualified assessor at the centre judges your evidence, and the certificate comes from Highfield Qualifications.
The Highfield Level 2 Certificate in Business Improvement Techniques (RQF) is designed to support a role in the workplace, helping learners understand and implement business improvement techniques across various sectors.
These are the units Highfield Qualifications registers against this qualification. It is a catalogue, not a syllabus. Which of them you take depends on the combination the qualification requires, and that is set by the awarding body rather than by us. Every unit here is regulated. Zavmo teaches towards them on your own work, and work done here is recognised as prior learning under the agreements we hold.
Zavmo is not an awarding body, is not an approved centre, and is not affiliated with Highfield Qualifications. It does the teaching and the mapping. Highfield Qualifications sets this qualification and awards it, and a qualified human assessor makes the assessment decision.
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What each unit actually teaches you to do
Carrying out autonomous maintenance Real unit · Highfield Qualifications
What you'll be able to do
- Know the principles of Total Productive Maintenance (TPM)
- Know the ways TPM can help improve the profitability of a business
- Know the ‘5 pillars’ of TPM, and who needs to be involved in its implementation
- Know what preparation is required prior to a TPM activity taking place
- Know the health and safety requirements for the area, and the resources required for a TPM activity
- Apply the practical steps of TPM
- Know the 6 major losses, their impact on a business, and how they can be eliminated
- Collect the information needed to calculate Overall Equipment Effectiveness (OEE)
- Know why it is necessary to audit TPM activities, and the techniques used
- Carry out a TPM audit
- Know what aspects of business performance can improve as a result of TPM
- Know how TPM fits in with other lean business principles
Carrying out flow process analysis Real unit · Highfield Qualifications
What you'll be able to do
- Explain the principles of Flow Process Analysis, its benefits and use in a lean manufacturing environment.
- Establish ‘value added’ and ‘non value added’ activities.
- Explain how Flow Process Analysis is applied to a part or process to help identify where waste or problem conditions occur.
- Construct a flow analysis sheet to map the process.
- Carry out a Flow Process Analysis on a chosen part, using appropriate tools and techniques.
- Produce a visual representation of a process using appropriate mapping techniques.
- Identify the type of improvements that can be made to the process, with defined, quantifiable objectives and targets.
- Identify the implementation issues that can arise as a result of proposed improvements.
- Produce a payback matrix or efficiency statement that prioritises and evaluates improvement opportunities.
- Explain how Flow Process Analysis fits in with other lean business processes.
Carrying out set-up reduction techniques Real unit · Highfield Qualifications
What you'll be able to do
- Know the principles of ‘Set up reduction techniques’, and how it can improve business efficiency and profitability
- Critically evaluate the changes that have been made, or are being proposed, to the set up activity
- Know the role and application of standard operating procedures in sustaining improvements
- Know how effective process set up and changeover techniques can build effective team working in the workplace
- Know how effective process set up and changeover techniques fits in with other lean business principles
- Know why a machine, process or operation can be selected for the improvement activity, and what range of improvements can be possible
- Know the difference between motion and work, and what is meant by value adding and non value adding activities
- Carry out the basic steps in a set up procedure
- Know the basic steps to be followed in a set up procedure aimed at streamlining the set up operation
- Know the preparation needed to be done prior to a set up reduction activity taking place
- Apply the practical steps of ‘set up reduction techniques’ using the ‘Single Minute Exchange of Dies’ (SMED) technique
- Apply effective problem solving methods and techniques to further improve the set up activity
- Set quantifiable targets and objectives for the improvement activity, and how they can be achieved
Contributing to the application of kanban control systems Real unit · Highfield Qualifications
What you'll be able to do
- Know when to use kanbans as part of a stock control, or a production control system
- Know the development of work flow, from traditional push, through visual pull to continuous flow systems
- Know the various types of visual triggers that are used as a means of visual communication
- Create stock control triggers
- Know how kanbans communicate the need for action
- Design and use a two bin system where the container acts as a trigger
- Use multiple containers to cope with high volumes or complex supply chains
- Know how kanbans are important parts of pull systems
- Use input and output kanbans to create flow through a production area or series of processes
- Know the strengths and weaknesses of kanban systems
Contributing to carrying out lead time analysis Real unit · Highfield Qualifications
What you'll be able to do
- Know what lead time is, and how it is used as an improvement tool in a lean business environment
- Identify the representative parts or processes that are suitable for the production of a lead time profile
- Know the type of information required to compile a draft outline of lead time profiles
- Create a lead time profile and frequency diagram for the part or processes that have been analysed
- Fully analyse the current practice in order to identify potential improvements
- Know the type of improvements that can be made to reduce lead time, with defined, quantifiable, objectives, and targets
- Know the implementation issues that can arise as a result of proposed improvements to achieve a targeted lead time
- Plan the improvements needed, and the consequences for the business of not being able to achieve the benefits
- Know how Lead Time Analysis fits in with other lean business activities
Contributing to effective team working Real unit · Highfield Qualifications
What you'll be able to do
- Know the different types of team roles, and how they contribute to effective team working
- Know how working relationships need to extend across appropriate work groups and departments
- Identify individual strengths and weaknesses, and how they contribute to the effectiveness
- Know how individuals behaviour and appearance may be perceived by others
- Know the importance of creating and maintaining effective working relationships
- Know the types of problems and difficulties that can occur within team working relationships, and how they can be resolved
- Know the importance of sharing knowledge, information, and performance measures within the team
- Present information in an amicable and constructive manner, in relation to the team or individual circumstance
- Use different types of communication methods, in order to keep others informed
- Identify the mixture of skills and experience available within a team
- Know how the mixture of skills and experience within a team, contributes to effective team working
Contributing to the Application of Continuous Improvement Techniques _Kaizen_ Real unit · Highfield Qualifications
What you'll be able to do
- Recognise the importance and need to continuously improve productivity in the working environment.
- Identify the types of improvement that can be made as part of continuous improvement.
- Define the term ‘waste’ in business, and explain how it affects productivity.
- Contribute to the elimination of ‘waste’ in a workplace.
- Define what benchmarking is.
- Recognise the potential benefits of benchmarking.
- Identify the type of improvements that can be made in the workplace.
- Describe the ‘12’ steps to carrying out a continuous improvement activity.
- Carry out a continuous improvement activity.
- Identify the key performance indicators that are used to measure improvements.
- Explain how performance indicators are applied, and how the results are visually communicated.
- Explain the role of standard operating procedures in sustaining improvements.
- Recognise the importance of an appropriate environment for improvement.
Contributing to the Application of Workplace Organisation Techniques Real unit · Highfield Qualifications
What you'll be able to do
- Define what a work environment is, and what is meant by an organised working environment.
- Identify the benefits that can be achieved by having an organised working environment.
- Describe the methods and techniques for workplace organisation, and how they are used.
- Explain how the steps of workplace organisation are implemented.
- Apply the first three steps of workplace organisation.
- Explain the fourth and fifth steps of workplace organisation in order to sustain and improve the workplace.
- Carry out a tagging exercise.
- Redeploy or dispose of non-essential items from the workplace.
- Explain why it is necessary to audit workplace organisation activities, and describe the tools and techniques that are used.
- Carry out a workplace organisation audit.
- Explain how aspects of health, safety, and team work may improve as a result of good workplace organisation.
- Explain how workplace organisation fits in with other lean business techniques.
Contributing to the analysis and selection of parts for improvement Real unit · Highfield Qualifications
What you'll be able to do
- Explain how to identify the selection of parts for improvement from within a chosen area or product range.
- Identify the type of information required to select representative parts within a chosen area or product range.
- Explain how to group identified parts into appropriate part families.
- Group parts based on part shape, part size, the material used to manufacture the part, and the manufacturing process.
- Carry out an analysis of parts.
- Explain the principles and process of carrying out an analysis.
- Explain the difference between ‘lead time’ and ‘cycle time’.
- Define the term ‘bill of materials’ for each of the representative parts.
- Recognise the importance of analysing and selecting parts for improvement.
- Explain how the analysis and selection of parts for improvement fits in with other lean business techniques.
Contributing to the application of problem solving techniques Real unit · Highfield Qualifications
What you'll be able to do
- Know the types of problems that can affect a business, and the effects of unresolved problems on business performance
- Know the benefits of adopting a structured approach to problem solving
- Know the techniques available to help identify, contain, and resolve problems in the workplace
- Apply the appropriate problem solving technique to identify the root cause of a problem
- Know how the appropriate corrective actions are determined, selected, and implemented to resolve problems
- Know the tools and techniques available to prevent the recurrence of a problem
- Capture improvement opportunities, and the actions needed to carry out the improvement effectively
- Know how effective problem recognition and problem solving can be used to identify and implement other improvement opportunities
Contributing to the creation of standard operating procedures _SOP_ Real unit · Highfield Qualifications
What you'll be able to do
- Know what is meant by the term standardisation as applied to a business environment
- Know how standardisation can help to make an organisation more competitive
- Know what standard operating procedures are, and their benefits
- Know the areas within a business environment that standard operating procedures seek to address
- Know the key points that are included on a standard operation sheet, and the difference between a ‘main step’ and an ‘operation’
- Know the difference between ‘value added’ and ‘non value added’ activities
- Know the principles of motion economy and how this is incorporated into standard operating procedures
- Collect information for use in preparing a standard operating sheet
- Know the factors that could cause a review of a standard operating procedure
- Know the reasons for having reviews of standard operating procedures
- Know what factors could cause a revision to standard operating procedures
Contributing to the development of visual management systems Real unit · Highfield Qualifications
What you'll be able to do
- Know what is meant by ‘visual management’, and the benefits that can be gained from having visual management systems in place
- Know how the principles and processes of visual management can be applied in the workplace
- Know the different forms of visual management, and to what part of the business they can be applied
- Display information, and key business and local performance measures
- Know the improvement actions and measurement techniques that will facilitate the deployment of a visual management system
- Employ an improvement action that requires a visual management system activity within a work area
- Prepare and carry out the visual management activity within a chosen work area
- Display and maintain information, using the most appropriate and effective methods
- Know how further improvement actions continue to drive the information and development of the system
- Know how visual management systems fit in with other lean business activities
Statutory regulations and organisational safety requirements Real unit · Highfield Qualifications
What you'll be able to do
- Know the principal provisions of the Health and Safety at Work Act and other current legislation
- Know how current legislation affects health and safety issues in respect of employers, employees and the public
The national standards these units are built against
What the job actually needs, in the words employers and awarding bodies already use for the work itself.
- Standard
Apply Continuous Improvement Principles to Your Work
The jobs these credits are mapped to
A qualification is never a dead end here. Each of these is a job record this qualification is a mapped route into.
- 2 records
- 2 records
- 1 record
- 1 record
- 1 record
- 1 record
Showing 6 roles, drawn from 14 job records mapped to this qualification. Near-identical records are folded together, and each row says how many it stands for.
Where this can lead
Continuous Improvement Specialist
This work can lead to managing larger improvement projects, running a continuous improvement team, or taking charge of operational excellence across a business.
See the whole journeyThe credits, and who awards them
Level 2 credits are regulated, and they are awarded by Highfield Qualifications rather than by Zavmo. They don’t vanish when a subscription ends or a website closes. They travel to any employer, and Zavmo keeps the map of what you have covered and what is next.
What you would be collecting
Carrying out autonomous maintenanceCarrying out flow process analysisCarrying out set-up reduction techniquesContributing to the application of kanban control systemsContributing to carrying out lead time analysisContributing to effective team workingContributing to the Application of Continuous Improvement Techniques _Kaizen_Contributing to the Application of Workplace Organisation Techniques
Each one is a real unit registered against this qualification.
How you’d practise it
You don’t watch this. You do it.
You are not assessed on remembering this. You are assessed on applying it, analysing it, evaluating it and producing something. So that is what the practice is: projects, role play and your own live cases, with a tutor in the room.
The Navigator · your what-if tutor Illustration - Bring your own plan Create
For “Contributing to the Application of Continuous Improvement Techniques _Kaizen_” you bring the plan you are actually working on, not a case study. Zavmo pulls on the assumptions in it until the weak one shows.
- Draft the real one Create
You do “Contributing to the creation of standard operating procedures _SOP_” on a real document of your own. Zavmo works on the draft you have to send anyway, so the coursework and the job are the same piece of work.
- Map a live decision Analyse
“Carrying out flow process analysis” runs on a decision you are facing now. Zavmo maps it with you and shows what the second-order effect looks like before you find out the slow way.
- Lead it Apply
“Contributing to carrying out lead time analysis” is practised on the team you actually have. You talk through the call you are about to make, and Zavmo makes you say it the way you would say it to them.
How you would learn this
One to one, on the work you already do
A tutor sets the task against your own job and marks the reasoning, at your pace. There is no cohort to fall behind.
A lesson from Carrying out autonomous maintenance, one of this qualification's own units.
Applied to your work in any of these jobs
This unit introduces Total Productive Maintenance (TPM) principles and their role in business profitability. Learners will understand the '5 pillars' of TPM, preparation for TPM activities, health and safety considerations, and practical application of autonomous maintenance.
- 1 Remember
- 2 Understand
- 3 Apply
- 4 Analyse
- 5 Evaluate
- 6 Create
It is £70 a month, billed monthly. Your free first module is Future Fluency, and you can cancel any time. Teaching towards this qualification begins when you subscribe.
Built for Highfield Level 2 Certificate In Business Improvement Techniques (RQF)
13 units in this credential, in the order it lists them, awarded by Highfield Qualifications.
- Carrying out autonomous maintenance
- Carrying out flow process analysis
- Carrying out set-up reduction techniques
- Contributing to the application of kanban control systems
- Contributing to carrying out lead time analysis
- Contributing to effective team working
and 7 more in the full unit list below.
Free tools
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Learned on your own work, taught one-to-one.
Everything you just read, learned one-to-one on the job you already do. Your free first module is Future Fluency, so you can see how the teaching works before you pay for anything.
Build my plan, freeNo card. See how this qualification maps onto your role and meet the tutors who’d teach it, free. The learning begins when you subscribe. It’s £70 a month, billed monthly. Cancel any time and billing stops.
The title, level, credits, guided learning hours and unit learning outcomes on this page are taken from the Ofqual Register of Regulated Qualifications. Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0. Where this data comes from.