As long ago as the 1930's Dr Walter Shewhart (the man who invented the process behaviour chart) developed an overall model for process improvement. It has been used ever since.
Shewhart's model describes the four stages that you should go through when you set about improving a process, as follows:
Plan what you are going to do, after you have gathered some evidence of the nature and size of the problem.
Do it, preferably on a small scale first.
Study the results. Did the plan work?
Act on the results. If the plan was successful, standardise on this new way of working. If it wasn't, try something else
