Sustainment & Continuous Improvement Governance RACI (Template)

Purpose and How to Use this Template

This template helps teams preserve continuous improvement gains by making ownership, accountability, and governance explicit. Use it to assign roles for core sustainment activities (standard work updates, audits, training, metrics ownership, escalation), establish a meeting cadence that supports daily management and periodic review, perform routine health checks, and define clear escalation rules.

Copy this template into your site or Deck 1132 and tailor role names, frequencies, and thresholds to your organization. The template is intentionally practical so teams can apply it quickly and then evolve it as their needs change.

Core Roles (examples)

• Process Owner — End-to-end owner of the process, responsible for performance and improvements.
• Shift Lead / Supervisor — Day-to-day owner for standard work adherence and immediate issues.
• Continuous Improvement Coach/Facilitator — Supports problem solving, kaizen events, and capability building.
• Quality Manager — Owns quality audits, defect investigations, and corrective actions.
• Training Coordinator / Trainer — Ensures training materials and delivery are current and effective.
• Operations Manager / Site Manager — Provides resources, removes obstacles, and enforces governance.
• Metric Owner / Data Steward — Maintains KPI definitions, data collection, and reporting accuracy.

RACI Matrix Template

Use the table below to map activities against roles. Replace role headings with your team titles and mark R, A, C or I for each activity.

Suggested Governance Meetings & Cadence

• Daily Huddle (10–15 min) — Participants: Shift Lead, Supervisors, Metric Owner (rotating). Purpose: Review yesterday/today metrics, safety or quality flags, immediate obstacles, and top-of-day focus. Outcome: Assign immediate actions with owners and due times.
• Weekly CI Sync (30–60 min) — Participants: Process Owner, CI Coach, Shift Leads, Metric Owner. Purpose: Review trend data, progress on improvement actions, audit findings, training gaps. Outcome: Prioritized list of improvement tasks and owners.
• Monthly Sustainment Review (60–90 min) — Participants: Ops Manager, Process Owners, Quality, Training. Purpose: Validate standard work updates, audit results, training effectiveness, and metric integrity. Outcome: Decisions on resource allocation, escalations, and larger improvements.
• Quarterly Executive Review — Participants: Site Leadership, Program Sponsors. Purpose: Governance-level review of sustainment health, major escalations, capability gaps, and investment needs. Outcome: Strategy adjustments and approvals.

Health-Check Checklist (use weekly or monthly as appropriate)

1. Standard work current and accessible at the point of use? (Yes/No)
2. Latest process audit completed and findings logged? (Yes/No) — If No, schedule within 7 days.
3. Training records up-to-date for affected staff? (Yes/No)
4. KPIs show sustained improvement or acceptable control limits? (Yes/No) — If No, trigger RCA.
5. Open improvement actions have owners and realistic due dates? (Yes/No)
6. Escalations resolved within defined SLA? (Yes/No) — If No, escalate to next governance level.
7. Any recurring deviations or workarounds observed? (Yes/No) — If Yes, prioritize root cause investigation.

Tip: Record the checklist outcomes and two-line notes for each No to track recurring problems and show trends over time.

Escalation Rules (example thresholds and steps)

Define simple, measurable thresholds so teams know when to escalate.

• Tier 1 — Team level: If a metric misses target for 1 shift or a safety/quality concern appears, the Shift Lead investigates, logs the issue, and applies immediate containment.
• Tier 2 — Site/Process level: If the metric misses target for 3 shifts or a corrective action is not implemented within agreed time, escalate to Process Owner and CI Coach for RCA and action plan within 48 hours.
• Tier 3 — Operations / Executive: If the issue persists for 2 weeks, or risk to production/customer is high, escalate to Operations Manager and schedule Executive Review within next governance cycle.

Suggested Sustainment KPIs

• Adherence to Standard Work (%) — measured by audits
• Improvement Action Closure Rate (%) — percent closed on time
• Recurring Defect Rate or Repeat Issues (%)
• Training Completion and Competency Scores
• Audit Health Score — composite of audit findings and severity
• Number of Escalations by Tier (trend)

Sample Filled Guidance (quick example)

Activity: "Conduct scheduled process audits" — R: Shift Lead, A: Quality Manager, C: CI Coach, I: Process Owner. Frequency: Bi-weekly. Acceptance criteria: Audit performed, non-conformances recorded, corrective actions assigned within 3 working days.

How to Tailor This Template

• Replace example role names with your organizational titles and localize cadence (e.g., some plants need daily audits, others weekly).
• Keep RACI simple — avoid more than one A per activity. If multiple stakeholders must approve, choose a single accountable and list others as C.
• Make KPIs visible on daily huddle boards and in a shared dashboard so metric owners can be disciplined about data integrity.
• Link standard work documents, training records, and audit results to the RACI owner so ownership is operational, not only documented.

Operational Tips

• Make the first week after an improvement launch audit-heavy to validate adoption; reduce audit frequency only when the process stabilizes.
• Use short, specific acceptance criteria for each activity (what success looks like) to avoid ambiguous ownership disputes.
• Record meeting outcomes as simple action items with owner and due date — fewer, clearer actions are better than many vague ones.

Where This Template Fits

This Template is intended to be used as part of Deck 1132 to preserve gains at scale. It can become a living document in your domain, copied and adapted for each process area, site, or facility. Consider pairing it with audit collections, training trackers, and KPI dashboards to make sustainment operational rather than administrative.