WHAT IS KAIZEN? Kaizen (Continuous Improvement) is a strategy where employees at all levels of a company work together proactively to achieve regular, incremental improvements to the manufacturing process. In a sense, it combines the collective talents within a company to create a powerful engine for improvement. THE DUAL NATURE OF KAIZEN Kaizen is part action plan and part philosophy.
As an action plan, Kaizen is about organizing events focused on improving specific areas within the company. These events involve teams of employees at all levels, with an especially strong emphasis on involving plant floor employees
As a philosophy, Kaizen is about building a culture where all employees are actively engaged in suggesting and implementing improvements to the company. In truly lean companies, it becomes a natural way of thinking for both managers and plant floor employees.
Kaizen works hand-in-hand with Standardized Work. Standardized Work captures the current best practices for a process, and Kaizen aims to find improvements for those processes. Note the emphasis on current; Standardized Work is living documentation (it continually evolves through Kaizen). Kaizen is part action plan and part philosophy. Consistent application of Kaizen as an action plan develops Kaizen as a philosophy.
KAIZEN EVENTS A typical Kaizen event goes something like this:
Set goals and provide any necessary background.
Review the current state and develop a plan for improvements.
Implement improvements.
Review and fix what doesn’t work.
Report results and determine any follow-up items.
This type of cycle is frequently referred to as PDCA (Plan, Do, Check, and Act). PDCA brings a scientific approach to making improvements:
Plan (develop a hypothesis)
Do (run experiment)
Check (evaluate results)
Act (refine your experiment; then start a new cycle)
KAIZEN PHILOSOPHY Interestingly, Kaizen as an action plan is exactly what develops Kaizen as a philosophy. When Kaizen is applied as an action plan through a consistent and sustained program of successful Kaizen events, it teaches employees to think differently about their work. In other words, consistent application of Kaizen as an action plan creates tremendous long-term value by developing the culture that is needed for truly effective continuous improvement.
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In simple terms, the five S methodology helps a workplace remove items that are no longer needed (sort), organize the items to optimize efficiency and flow (straighten), clean the area in order to more easily identify problems (shine), implement color coding and labels to stay consistent with other areas (standardize) and develop behaviors that keep the workplace organized over the long term (sustain). Watch this video, which explains the steps, and provides video time lapse of how a healthcare organization performed their 5S event
Here is a breakdown of each ‘S’ 1. Sort (seiri) – Distinguishing between necessary and unnecessary things, and getting rid of what you do not need
Remove items not used in area – outdated materials, broken equipment, redundant equipment, files on the computer, measurements which you no longer use
Ask staff to tag all items which they don’t think are needed – this improves understanding about need and use
Classify all equipment and materials by frequency of use to help decide if it should be removed – place ‘Red Tag’ on items to be removed
Establish a ‘holding area’ for items that are difficult to classify – hold item for allotted period to enable others not on 5S team to review
2. Straighten (seiton) – The practice of orderly storage so the right item can be picked efficiently (without waste) at the right time, easy to access for everyone. A place for everything and everything in its place.
Identify and allocate a place for all the materials needed for your work
Assign fixed places and fixed quantity
Make it compact
Place heavy objects at a height where they are easy to pick from
Decide how things should be put away, and obey those rules
3. Shine (seiso) – Create a clean worksite without garbage, dirt and dust, so problems can be more easily identified (leaks, spills, excess, damage, etc)
Identify root causes of dirtiness, and correct process
Only one work activity on a workspace at any given time
Keep tools and equipment clean and in top condition, ready for use at any time
Cleanliness should be a daily activity – at least 5 minutes per day
Use chart with signatures/initials shows that the action or review has taken place
Ensure proper lighting – it can be hard to see dirt and dust
4. Standardize (seiketsu) – Setting up standards for a neat, clean, workplace
Standardization of best practices through ‘visual management’
Make abnormalities visible to management
Keep each area consistent with one another
Standards make it easy to move workers into different areas
Create process of how to maintain the standard with defined roles and responsibilities
Make it easy for everyone to identify the state of normal or abnormal conditions – place photos on the walls, to provide visual reminder
5. Sustain (shitsuke) – Implementing behaviors and habits to maintain the established standards over the long term, and making the workplace organization the key to managing the process for success
Toughest phase is to Sustain – many fall short of this goal
Establish and maintain responsibilities – requires leader commitment to follow through
Every one sticks to the rules and makes it a habit
Participation of everyone in developing good habits and buy-in
Regular audits and reviews
Get to root cause of issues
Aim for higher 5S levels – continuous improvement
Originally, the technique was called ‘4S’, with Set and Shine combined. However, Toyota and most other companies use the 5S as a standard.
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