Proposal Volume Surges but Implementation Lags? —— A Case Study on the Diagnosis and Reconstruction of a Proposal Funnel in a Manufacturing Company

1. Introduction: Numbers Rise, but Benefits Do Not Follow

A mechanical manufacturing company has been promoting a company-wide proposal system for three years. The annual proposal volume has increased from 400 to 3,200, with a participation rate exceeding 45%, making the data look prosperous. However, at the end of the year, the Quality Department found that only about 30% of the proposals were actually implemented, and the confirmed annual benefits by the finance department were only around 400,000 yuan, averaging less than 150 yuan per proposal. Worse still, employee sentiment was quietly reversing—phrases like "proposals are futile" and "nothing happens after submission" were becoming more common, leading to an 18% decrease in proposal volume in the first quarter of the following year.

This phenomenon of "numerical prosperity but poor implementation" is common in many companies: the proposal system focuses on the number of submissions, with the management emphasis entirely on "receiving" proposals, and no one overseeing their "implementation." The enthusiasm for improvement is consumed at the moment of submission but does not receive the necessary feedback or benefits, making it unsustainable. This company spent a year thoroughly diagnosing and reconstructing its "proposal funnel," increasing the implementation rate from 22% to 71% and multiplying the annual benefits by six. This article provides a comprehensive review of the improvement process.

2. Drawing the Funnel: Where Do Proposals Fail in the Lifecycle?

The first step in improvement is not to add incentives but to break down the complete lifecycle of proposals and use data to identify the points of loss. They mapped out a funnel with five stages: "submission → review → implementation → standardization → benefit realization," and categorized all 3,200 proposals submitted throughout the year, resulting in a stark set of numbers:

• Submission → Review: The annual review pass rate was 68%, but the average feedback cycle was 41 days. Employees lost enthusiasm waiting for responses; 19% of the proposals received no reply for over 60 days, and many employees had forgotten the content by the time they were asked about it.
• Review → Implementation: Only 55% of the proposals that passed the review were actually implemented. The reasons were consistently the same three words: "no resources"—tight production schedules, lack of leadership, and equipment modifications requiring scheduling, often delaying implementation for months.
• Implementation → Standardization: Only 38% of the implemented proposals were synchronized with updates to work instructions or process parameters. In other words, 60% of the improvement results were in a state of "improved but forgotten," reverting to the original state with a change in personnel or shift.
• Standardization → Benefit Realization: Less than 20% of the proposals ultimately completed benefit calculations, and the calculation criteria were inconsistent—some workshops filled in benefits based on "feelings," while others did not report at all, making it impossible for the finance department to confirm.

The method of data collection is also noteworthy: they did not rely on ledgers but organized workshop supervisors and process engineers to verify each proposal over a two-week period. They marked three states in the system: "reviewed but not implemented," "implemented but not standardized," and "standardized but not calculated." Many proposals were marked as "completed" in the ledger but were only half-done. After verification, the actual loss was found to be much more severe than initially thought.

With losses at each of the five stages, averaging 20% to 30% per stage, only about 600 out of 3,200 proposals were truly effective. Once the funnel was drawn, the problems became evident: the proposal system was not about "insufficient submissions," but about "poor implementation"; the four points of loss were slow reviews, lack of resources for implementation, missing standardization, and unclear benefit calculations.

3. Case Analysis: Targeted Governance for the Four Points of Loss

First, Speed Up Reviews: Tiered Reviews and 48-Hour Rapid Response. In the past, all proposals went through the same review meeting, held monthly, where a batch of proposals was evaluated together, and the queuing alone took a month. The company changed to a tiered review system: proposals involving safety and quality risks went through a specialized review; cross-departmental and high-investment proposals went through the monthly review meeting; other routine proposals were directly approved by workshop supervisors and process engineers within 48 hours. They also clarified that reviews were not just formalities—each proposal must clearly state "the problem before improvement, the expected outcome after improvement, and the investment and risks." Proposals that did not meet these criteria were returned for additional information, forcing proposers to think through the issues thoroughly. Review results were pushed to the proposal system on the same day, and adopted proposals were given implementation suggestions and assigned responsible persons. The median feedback cycle was reduced from 41 days to 3 days, and employees felt for the first time that "proposals are truly being reviewed."

Second, Allocate Resources for Implementation: Improvement Time Pool and Individual Responsibility. To address the "lack of resources," the company mandated that each team reserve two hours per week for improvement activities, managed by the team leader, and included in the weekly plan rather than being a verbal commitment. For proposals involving equipment modifications, the equipment department had to provide a scheduling commitment within two weeks, with delays explained at the monthly meeting. Each proposal that passed the review was assigned a single implementation responsible person, and the "reviewed date" and "implementation commitment date" were displayed on the kanban, with progress reviewed at the team's weekly meeting. Six months later, the implementation start rate for reviewed proposals increased from 55% to 89%.

Third, Enforce Standardization: No Standardization, No Benefit Calculation. This was the harshest but most effective measure. The company stipulated that within 30 days of proposal implementation, at least one of the work instructions, control plan, or inspection standards must be updated. Otherwise, the proposal would not be counted in the benefit calculation and would not be eligible for awards. Initially, workshops complained about the "heavy process," but after two quarters, the retention rate of improvement results visibly increased—recurrence of similar issues dropped by 40%.

Fourth, Clear Benefit Calculation: Simplified Calculation Form and Financial Review. The company created a three-line simplified calculation form: comparing material consumption, labor hours, and scrap loss before and after improvement, plus one-time investment, calculated by the workshop and reviewed by the finance department, with monthly public disclosure. After standardizing the criteria, benefits became clear and quantifiable, and the annual improvement benefits had credible figures, giving management more confidence in continuing to invest in the proposal system.

4. Results and Reflections

One year after the reconstruction, the data showed: the proposal implementation rate increased from 22% to 71%, the median feedback cycle shortened from 41 days to 3 days, the implementation start rate was 89%, the standardization rate was 92%, and the annual direct benefits confirmed by the finance department were approximately 2.8 million yuan, with a return on investment of about 1:6. Employee participation increased from 45% to 67%, and the proportion of "repeated proposals" dropped from 31% to 9%—employees began to check what others had proposed before submitting their own, leading to higher proposal quality. More importantly, the rate of secondary proposals significantly increased, with the phrase "proposals receive feedback, and improvements yield results" becoming the best motivator.

One detail is particularly illustrative: an experienced employee in the welding workshop suggested adding a splash guard to the welding torch and attached a hand-drawn sketch. According to the new process, this proposal was reviewed and approved within 48 hours, and the modification was completed within a week, reducing welding wire consumption by 18% and saving about 26,000 yuan in material costs that month. The employee received an immediate reward at the monthly meeting and became a "proposal star" in the workshop, leading to over 70 proposals from the team in the following six months. The roots of an improvement culture are embedded in these visible closed loops. The following year, this funnel method was replicated for safety proposals and energy efficiency improvements, with equally significant results—once the mechanism is running smoothly, horizontal replication faces almost no resistance.

The reflection also noted a lesson: during the initial reconstruction phase, a workshop, aiming to boost the implementation rate, included the "number of proposals implemented in the current month" in the team's performance evaluation. This led to "fake implementations"—proposals marked as implemented in the ledger but showing no changes on-site. The company immediately halted this practice and switched to on-site spot checks and benefit re-verification for dual confirmation. Once metrics are tied to performance evaluations, they can become distorted; implementation rate evaluations must be accompanied by on-site verification to ensure quality.

5. One-Sentence Summary

The focus of proposal management should shift from "receiving many" to "implementing effectively": fast reviews, resource allocation, mandatory standardization, and clear benefit calculations. By plugging every point of loss in the funnel, improvements can transform from paper to tangible benefits. For any company with a sufficient number of proposals, instead of continuing to increase mobilization efforts, it is better to first draw out their own funnel—where the losses occur, there lie the opportunities for improvement.

The success or failure of a proposal system does not lie in the number of submissions, but in the entire implementation chain from review, implementation, standardization to benefit realization. Using funnel data to identify loss points and addressing them stage by stage ensures that improvements yield visible benefits.

Knowledge code: 5.1.2

Version: v20260816

Author: Quality Think Tank Quality Think Tank is dedicated to providing systematic knowledge, methodologies, and practical tools for quality management professionals, helping companies continuously enhance their quality capabilities.