Any organization can expect consistent improvement only if it can develop the work culture in such a way that their employees are delegated with some authority to identify and resolve problems. Kaizen training emphasize that each and every basic rule of the organization should be communicated to all the employees. The clear-cut establishment of methods and rules can very well be felt in the kaizen-type improvement process implemented organization. Following are the basic steps to be followed while implementing a kaizen "event". Of course the organization has the liberty to re-organize the sequence of these steps based on the situation to bring out the highest efficiency.

Kaizen Event Process Step 1: Planning and Preparation

Identify the correct area in the organization that requires the immediate implementation of rapid improvement event. Suggested areas could be the bottlenecks where everything is substantially delayed such as the busy work-in-progress sector; administrative department; or the production area. These areas of an organization are often prone to "mess" and performance or the quality will fall short of customer demands. Unfortunately these lagging would reflect badly on the turnover, marketing and finance of the organization. (i.e., the most "value added" activities).

After identifying the most appropriate production, administrative or a specific segment in the workplace, the focus should be given in particular to "waste elimination" issue prevailing in that department for implementing the kaizen event (i.e., the problems in particular which needs improvement, encompassing the developmental actions such as lead time reduction, quality enhancement, focusing on high production). After identifying the problematic area, the managers have to build a cross-functional team of employees.

Care should be taken to include workers from the administrative and production process departments which are aimed for implementing kaizen event, although at times employees with "fresh perspectives" may find their place in the team. Prior to the training, the entire team should be completely aware of the organization’s rapid improvement process and given appropriate training on the process. Normally, the duration of kaizen events varies from one day to seven days, depending on the length of the process involved and depth of the problem. During the period of training, the employees are expected to have a complete focus on the kaizen event, compromising their daily schedule of work so that they will not have any distraction during the experience.

Kaizen Event Process Step 2: Implementation

The first and foremost work of the team is to identify and clearly understand the "current state" of the targeted process. This would give the team members a common and a clear picture of problem that they are aiming to solve. In general two methods are leveraged to define the prevailing state and identify production related wastes.

Five Whys: Toyota designed and followed a method of asking "why" five times and answering them one by one to understand the root cause of a problem, layer by layer.

Value Stream Mapping: The process elements that form the part of process of transformation, such as the change of raw materials into finished goods, execution of an administrative process, activities, material flow, would be represented in the form of flow chart. Non-value-adding elements in the targeted process can be easily eliminated thorough this process. This is, more or less, the same as that of the technique designed for preventing the pollution in the organization. Value stream mapping can also be applied Phase 1 to identify the areas for implementing the kaizen event.

It is obvious that it is a must to gather data on the targeted process during the kaizen event. The data includes details of overall product quality, scrap rate and source of scrap; product routing and distance traveled, space occupied by the equipment in terms of square feet, changeover strategies, reasons for bottlenecks, details and value of work in progress, details of manpower required to complete a specific task. Specific role of data collection and analysis should be assigned to each of the team members. The large quantity of data collected by the team members will be an added advantage to design value stream maps of the process and will also be very helpful to conduct time studies of respective functions. (e. g takt time, lead-time)

After completing the data collection, it should be analyzed to locate the areas for improvement. The team members would raise queries on the aim of the process, and clearly observe the wastes, reasons for waste and analyze if each element will add value to achieve its target. After identifying this crucial area which has zero value, the team members should discuss on the steps to be adopted for improvement. The ideas that creep out of such brainstorming sessions are often put to test in shop floor in the process of “mock-ups”. The most appealing and fruitful ideas are selected and suggested for implementation. To understand the complete benefits of the kaizen event, each of the employees should keep track of new cycle time and arrive on the benefits gained after eliminating the waste, operator motion, part conveyance, area utilized in terms of square feet and throughput time.

Kaizen Event Process Step 3: Follow-Up

This is the very important phase in the kaizen event as this ensures that the improvements are consistent and not just for time being. After completion of kaizen event, the team members should keep track of performance as a routine, in terms of metrics and measures, to record the gains. Lead and cycle times, process defect rates, movement required, utilization in terms of square feet, can be termed as examples of metrics, even though they would vary with the targeted and administrative process. In general, the follow-up kaizen events are conducted in 30 to 90 days after the first kaizen event with the aim of assessing the performance and locating the follow-up changes that should undertaken to maintain the consistency in performance and development. Normally, targeted process employees are solicited for feedback and ideas. Similar to the 5S method , the feedback and process performance should be displayed on scoreboards in an appealing manner to the employees.

Manufacturing can be a messy affair. Often the factory floor or the assembly line appears to be littered with tools and equipments. The entire unit appears disorganized and mismanaged. Did you ever get this feeling? If you have worked in the manufacturing sector then you are probably familiar with this scene.

One often wonders whether there is an effective system that can transform a business from chaos to champion. It appears there is one such system that can do exactly that and it is called Kaizen. This revolutionary concept can change your entire outlook on work ethics and productivity. It has been observed that this novel approach can actually improve your levels of productivity.

This Kaizen concept can help you to reorganize your business. You can watch the video of this philosophy in action and lean what kaizen is. The video is a simple and yet effective animation of how a factory floor looks when it is disorganized. It shows how difficult it is to work effectively in such a disorganized environment. The tools and material are lying littered all over the floor. The video shows how it lowers productivity and hinders growth. Then in the second half the video shows the transformation of the factory floor. This new idea is applied and the factory floor is organized and the mess is removed. Suddenly the workers feel better and work happily. They appear to be more enthusiastic about their work and are seen to be enjoying their work and this was caused due to a transformation in the work area. This is what Kaizen can do. It can cause productivity of workers to rise by simply reorganizing the work place. The entire process of manufacturing under goes a radical transformation. The video has some amusing dialogue and a great background musical score, but Americans should be careful, a lot of the pronunciation is blatantly Australian.

Everyone associated with manufacturing should watch this video. Even people at the senior management level would do well to watch this video. It helps one to understand the value order and eliminating wasteful practices. It teaches you to create value in much the same way that the concept of Kaizen does. The length of the video is only about five minutes and worth your time. The ideas presented in the video are a good training substitute for the real training provided in the actual 5S and Kaizen.

The idea should always to make work a little fun. When you do what you truly enjoy doing than quality is always easy to attain. This is what successful people have always preached. Make work enjoyable and the only way to do that is to choose your work with care. Make work a pleasure and see how you change at the work place. You will suddenly be transformed into a more productive worker.

Kaizen Button - Improvement

Kaizen Concept

Kaizen, Japanese for "betterment", or "adjusting for the better" refers to philosophical system or patterns that concentrate on the continuous improvement or improvement of procedures in manufacturing, engineering, game growth, and job management. Kaizen has been adopted by many countries and organizations for use in the work place to the betterment of the organization.

The kaizen concept has been practiced in medical care, psychotherapy, life-coaching, governance, banking, and other industries. When used in the business sector sense and applied to the place of work or business, kaizen relates to techniques that constantly build up all roles, and calls for all workers from the chief operating officer to the production line workers.  It, in addition to this, applies to functions, such as budgeting , buying and logistics, which intersect organizational edges into the chain. By amending standardized activities and processes, kaizen aims to eliminate waste.

Kaizen History

Kaizen was first put into practice in several Japanese business organizations after the Second World War, molded in portion by American business organizations and quality management instructors who visited the country.  Not long after Western cultures learned how to say Kaizen , it has since disseminated throughout the world and is now being utilized in many other locales besides merely business organization and productivity.

What is Kaizen?

Kaizen is an everyday process, the purpose of which goes beyond simple productivity betterment. It is, in addition to this a procedure that, when done in the correct manner, humanizes the work environment, gets rid of excessively hard work, and instructs individuals how to perform experimentation’s on their work utilizing the scientific method and how to learn to recognize and do away with wastefulness in business processes.

Kaizen Buttons

American Kaizen events are life changing and very influential. Part of each and every justification that makes Kaizen events influential is because they are thoroughly picked out and designed. There is one individual component that adds more to the influential power behind kaizen button than any other and that is individuals. While that maybe commonplace in the world, individuals or staffs in this case are actually the mightiness behind kaizen button. A popular car manufacturing company has been the most prosperous of all lean organizations and the creator of lean. This company does not believe in employing the so called sensations or big shots. They however hire individuals from college or high school for their work force that have not been subjected to the vigorous and hard to unlearn work environment.

They believe in building people around the Kaizen button culture and way of life. This Kaizen culture is centered or built around five areas which are:

1. Training
2. Lay-off Policy
3. Incentives/Metrics
4. Team Environment
5. Empowerment/Employee Involvement

Kaizen blitz, nevertheless, is incapable of resolving any mismanagement issue within an establishment or business.  This is a major reason why kaizen fails .  There are specific types of enhancements for which different ways and means should be used. In order to effectively use kaizen blitz, it is extremely important to comprehend the types of troubles for which kaizen buttons should and should not be applied. With appropriate preparation, kaizen buttons can convey and find betterment to an institution on its Kaizen theory or way of life.

When comparing America with Japan, which was in vogue not too long ago, it soon became apparent that the two cultures employed two entirely different approaches. Japan favored improvement that was gradual and continuous, while America tended more towards a "stop and go" approach - start strong, plateau, fall behind and then lurch forward to outdistance our competitors.

America Falls Behind, then Lurches

An example of America’s approach was with the space program. Mankind’s imagination was captured by Russia’s successful satellite launch and subsequent orbit, and America quickly realized there was some catching up to do. Our country’s immediate response was to increase the budget towards educational programs that dealt with mathematics and science, as well as those programs that emphasized defense and space research. It was President Kennedy who declared that landing a man on the moon and returning him to earth would be a national goal. This goal had the desired effect of mobilizing America in a common pursuit of that very goal.

Kaizen Comes to America

Masaaki Imai established the Kaizen Institute in 1986 in order to help Western companies introduce the tools, systems and concepts of kaizen . Also in 1986, Imai published his book on Japanese management and taught America how to pronounce kaizen . This bestselling book has been translated into many languages and disseminated around the business world. The definition of kaizen , in simple terms, is the idea of continuous improvement that involves everyone in the organization at a minimal cost. Its place falls somewhere between the maintenance of the status quo and pure innovation. In an interview given after the distribution of his book, Imai reflected that the concept still had not been fully embraced by many companies in the Western world.

America - with a hint of Kaizen

American Kaizen

In contrast, the principles and concepts of kaizen are widely utilized in Japanese firms. For instance, firms in Tokyo use the concepts to spur on its workforce to greater levels of improvement. This has had great success in Japanese firms, as it is no great leap for them to embrace concepts that embody a national norm. The improvements that this concept brings are small, but cumulative, which may be why America has shown little interest, and kaizen fails , is that  as a culture, we are interested in instant gratification, and hesitant to put in the time and effort to stage experiment and gather metrics to achieve seemingly insignificant gains in the short term.

To combat this attitude, and address the value and importance of the kaizen principles, an event known as the Kaizen blitz was initiated. The purpose of this five-day event is to spend a portion of time addressing one single issue that has been deemed important in order to illustrate the simplicity and universality of the kaizen model. Unfortunately, though it may strive to improve the overall process, the event may have lost much of the original power, in the sense that in striving towards the improvement of the overall process, the original goal of a gradual change is overshadowed by the more pressing goal of immediate change. In other words, the kaizen blitz, which strives to fulfill the kaizen concept, instead serves a far more American approach.

How do you say kaizen?

When you say “Kaizen”, it’s important to realize the audience.  If you’re speaking to Americans, for example, but you show how to pronounce kaizen in Japanese, perfectly, people may not understand you.  So, be careful of perfectly mimicking the pronunciation. This audio pronunciation of Kaizen shows the American pronunciation, which is quite effective for saying the word to a Western audience.

How do you pronounce kaizen?

Kaizen pronunciation doesn’t vary terribly much, but it can be difficult for others to understand if you say it sounding like you’re Japanese.  Oddly enough, Westerners butcher so many languages that pronouncing a word “properly” actually results in misinterpretation or confusion.

So, how to pronounce kaizen, to a Westerner?  When you say kaizen, pronounce the kai more with a little more emphasis than the zen.  Realize that Kaizen come from two words in Japanese, Kai and Zen, so that’s is where the syllables should be broken.

KI – zen

So, now you know how to say kaizen, you can impress your colleagues, dazzle your friends, and integrate it into your pickup lines, because the girls just go crazy for random bits of intellectual prowess, especially the model types.

Kaizen Budgeting Definition:

Kaizen Budgeting

Kaizen budgeting is an approach to budgeting which takes into account the costs of improving the production process. Instead of projecting costs based on current practices and methods, anticipated costs based upon kaizen improvements are already incorporated in the budget with the objective of reducing future costs below actual current costs. Kaizen budgeting can be used in profit centers, cost centers, and investment centers alike, assuming those antiquated means of financial analysis are still used. More modern tools like the balanced scorecard approach fit more aptly with the holistic perspective that kaizen is meant to provide to an organization.

Kaizen is a Japanese term which means continuous improvement. Kaizen budgeting, leveraging the kaizen concepts , contains within it the expectation for continuous improvements in reducing costs over the budgetary period. Frequently, the expectation is that cost reduction will arise from consistently delivered incremental improvements rather than significant specific improvements. Most of the added efficiency is expected to arise from employee suggestions. Organizations that leverage kaizen budgeting imbue their culture with the expectation that employee suggestions are recognized, valued, and rewarded. Read more…

Kaizen budgeting works by imposing gradually reduced budgets over time. The goal of these reduced budgets is to provoke changes from within the ranks of the organization and secure the buy-in from middle-management as well.

Money is but one piece of Kaizen Budgeting puzzle

Despite executive direction that kaizen tools and techniques should be used to reduce costs and increase quality, middle managers might resist these and attempt to maintain status quo within their fiefdoms.  By implementing kaizen budgeting, the middle manager is motivated to encourage kaizen techniques and allow control of the organization to flow to the worker, under their stewardship, rather than management and control.

As with any business or motivation technique, kaizen budgeting has its share of limitations and drawbacks which can lead to kaizen’s failure in an organization:

Short-Term Thinking
Kaizen based budgeting focuses on delivering continual short-term reductions in cost.  There are many ways to do this that don’t reflect the true kaizen concept .  By firing staff, cutting back their hours, hiring less-skilled employees while firing those who are higher paid, using cheaper raw materials, a department manager can provide the illusion of cutting costs the kaizen way, when in reality he’s slowly killing the organization in pursuit of illusorily strong kaizen metrics, instead of making it leaner and stronger.

Opportunities for Micromanagement
Since kaizen budgeting is dependent upon constant adjustments to a system, each of which reduces costs, a manager might be tempted to maintain a position that they know best about that system, and micromanage it rather than loosening control and allowing the workers to identify the opportunities for cost reductions.  Similarly, the department manager might be tempted to focus on individual employee flaws rather than process improvement.

Diminishing Returns
Even though kaizen budgeting can result in reduced costs for quarters on end, after a short while the low hanging fruit will be harvested.  After that, continued cost reductions will be more and more difficult to attain.  If kaizen budgeting continues to be applied in a situation when there are no more gradual adjustments available, the only opportunity for further cost reductions will be for an overhaul of the system or process, which is anathema to the kaizen process.

Kaizen - Why does it fail?

Sadly, when most organizations attempt to leverage Kaizen, the holistic approach for continuous improvement popularized by the Japanese, these companies fail to make the gains so widely touted.

It’s not that the Kaizen principles, themselves, fail. Unfortunately, it’s how kaizen is used in these organizations that is the root cause of the failure. This post is intended to convey what kaizen truly is, why it fails, and how to avoid the most common pitfalls associated with kaizen.

Kaizen guru Masaaki Imai described kaizen as a “state of mind that encourages everyone to consider it unusual when conditions do not continuously evolve” in his book on the subject . Masaaki Imai’s book in the late 1980’s brought Kaizen to Western attention.

All too many leaders approach Kaizen from an operational perspective – a means of cost reduction or meeting next quarter’s profit target. This perspective barely scratches the surface of what Kaizen is about, and approaching it as a means to these ends oft results in bitter disappointment. Kaizen is more than just a budgeting process, it’s a cultural mindset that our quality of life, whether at work, home, or socially, deserves to be constantly improved, and that we must all play a role in shaping it, worker and manager alike. Unless that culture is created, the attempts to gain the benefits of Kaizen tools and techniques will fail.

Kaizen will also fail when management attempts to use the tool to find specific fault with an individual.  If the problem in the organization is mismanagement or a specific employee (also a management responsibility), kaizen will not provide management with what they are looking for.  If the problem is management, itself, or something the management team should be responsible for, root cause analysis will identify management as the source of this trouble, if they allow the problem to truly be solved.  Sadly, when implemented half-heartedly or as part of a witch hunt, kaizen is frequently allowed only so long as it identifies changes that the workers need to make in their process, and not identify or resolve any issues in the realm of senior leadership.

Kaizen requires that we abandon the short-term, target-driven ways that modern corporate culture imposes. With stock-holders clamoring for greater dividends or increased share value, executive leadership has an imposing burden on their shoulders to decide between making the shareholders happy for now and creating a culture of long-term commitment and greater longevity and profitability in the long run. Even start-ups funded by venture capitalists are pushed to “get big fast” and “get large or get lost” without regard to fundamentals of building a culture, or in some cases, even a viable product, in hopes of an Initial Public Offering or sell-off that nets the investors large and rapid profits.  Unfortunately, to really be effective in sustainably delivering the benefits of kaizen, leadership needs to shift their focus to long-term company goals. Read more…

Kaizen concepts are quite different from traditional management concepts. For example, one of the fundamental management concepts in traditional management is is known as Management by Exception . This is also known as the "if it isn’t broken, don’t fix it " approach.  Given the way some Kaizen advocates paraphrase this, “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it,” the backwoods and uneducated mentality of the MBE concept in conveyed through stereotype.  No matter how you phrase it, it means that if everything is running effectively, then why change the operations of the current system?  However, kaizen management and lean manufacturing challenge these existing systems and continually strive to find ways by which the system can be improved.

Read more…