What is Kaizen
Kaizen is a Japanese term that means Continuous Improvement. Whenever you work on an improvement in your business or process, you are essentially practicing Kaizen. Kaizen can be done by supervisors, managers, and staff working in a process, and should not require a lot of money. While it may seem like most issues require some amount of investment to fix, this is not always the case. For instance, buying a tool to improve the speed of assembling your product and reducing the cycle time for the work area can help you save money in the long run.
How Did Kaizen Start
After World War II, Japan’s economy was in a dire state, and many manufacturers struggled to find efficient ways to produce their goods with the limited equipment they had. One manufacturer faced a challenge with long die changes that hampered productivity and needed to find a better way to streamline the process. The company’s team worked tirelessly to develop a new design to reduce the time required for the die change, which significantly reduced downtime, making it one of the first factories to adopt Kaizen in their production facility.
After the war, some Japanese managers collaborated with W. Edwards Deming, who is considered the father of quality, to introduce quality circles and their associated tools to improve production processes in various manufacturing facilities. Kaizen gained popularity across Japan and was widely taught to many companies with the assistance of Toyota.
Later on, executives from Toyota and Masaaki Imai played a vital role in bringing the Toyota Production System and Kaizen to North America through partnerships with General Motors and other automotive suppliers.
Benefits of Kaizen
Starting Kaizen in your business can bring numerous benefits, but the greatest among them is enhancing teamwork and culture within your company. Research has shown that companies that adopt and follow Kaizen methodology are more efficient and profitable, mainly because they are continually improving their processes.
Here are some benefits that your team will see when you work on Kaizen activities and projects.
- Getting feedback from your staff in the process – When you ask for suggestions on how to improve your business from staff and they get implemented, the workers feel valued because you are listening to their ideas and it makes them feel good.
- Helps improve the current way of doing things and achieving goals – Every project you start should have a goal in mind. Kaizen will help you plan your activities and tasks to achieve your ultimate goal for every improvement.
- Many small improvements are better than one large improvement – “Have you ever heard the phrase ‘a drop in the bucket’? It means that small actions can add up to make a big difference. This is especially true for Kaizen, or continuous improvement, where small improvements can boost morale and teamwork more effectively than one big project. At a previous job, we made it a goal to complete one improvement every week from the suggestion list or Continuous Improvement Tracker. Each week, there would be an announcement of a new Kaizen project, and the team would eagerly wait to hear if their idea had been chosen. It was nice to see how excited people were to contribute and to have their ideas put into action.”
- No major capital required – As I mentioned earlier, Kaizen does not necessarily require a huge sum of money to be implemented successfully. Instead, you can encourage your team to work on ideas that are low-cost or even free to execute. Often, when you encounter problems in a process, it may be due to someone not following the standard work procedures properly.
- When you establish a good work culture in your business, you’ll notice that your employees will take ownership of their work. I’ve witnessed teams effectively collaborate to solve problems without leadership prompting them. These teams communicate issues that they found to their leaders and also inform them of how they resolved the issues.
Kaizen Tools
There are quite a few Kaizen tools that you can use during your improvement activities, listed below are some of the more common ones I have used. However, there are many more that you can find on the web.
5 Why's
The 5 Why method allows you to take a deeper dive into an issue by asking why 5 times to find the root cause of an issue, let’s work through an example to show you how the 5 Why’s works.
The 5 Why method can be used in any scenario that needs a problem solved. You can also use the 5 Why system at home to find the root cause of an issue you are dealing with in your personal life.
Fishbone Diagram
A fishbone diagram always has these 5 elements
- The problem – Which is located at the head of the diagram
- Manpower leg – This leg is used to show how people are contributing to the issue
- Method leg – This leg can be used to document what process or instructions were not followed.
- Materials leg – Lets you describe any manufactured or purchased parts maybe causing the issue.
- Machine leg – Is there any tooling or machinery that is not working as intended and may be causing the issue?
Below is an example of a fishbone diagram that was filled out for being late for work.
PDCA
PDCA is an acronym for
- Plan – Make a plan on how you will solve the issues with the team or resources you have.
- Do – Implement the plan that your team has agreed upon.
- Check – After implementation of the plan, check periodically to see that staff and following the process you have set in place.
- Act – Find ways to improve the items that you have implemented in the process.
Gemba
After completing your Gemba activity, make sure to identify the root cause of any issues you find and take appropriate corrective action. If the root cause can be addressed immediately, then that’s great. However, if it cannot be fixed right away, implement a short-term solution and then focus on finding a long-term solution.
It’s better to have any solution than no solution at all. If you discover that this issue exists in other processes, ensure that you implement the solution in each area where the issue can be found. It’s crucial to set the solution in place in all areas where the issue may arise.
A3 Form - Root Cause Analysis Tool
See below for an example of an A3 Form
- Problem Description – Describe the problem that you are trying to solve.
- Target & Goal – Once you have completed the work on this A3 form, what would be your end goal?
- Root Cause Analysis – Fishbone diagram – Time to break out the fishbone diagram and work with your team to fill in the potential reasons why this issue has occurred. Don’t forget to use all four sections of the diagram.
- Plan or Implementation – Take the key reason from the fishbone diagram and make a plan to correct the issue. With the plan in place determine your completion date and write it on the form.
- Check and Follow-Up – With the plan implemented, you should schedule follow-ups to audit the area to ensure that the items put in place, are still in the area.
Implementing an A3 form correctly can be a powerful tool for Kaizen, helping companies make improvements.
The Ten Principles of Kaizen
The following principles were developed and taught by Masaaki Imai. The principles or rules of Kaizen have been followed by thousands and for decades. These rules of Kaizen have been followed by thousands and for decades. Keep these rules somewhere you can refer to them when you need guidance on how to correct an issue.
- Never Stop – There are always areas or items that can be improved on. Don’t stop improving projects
- Get Rid of Old Practises – Forget old habits and develop new habits that will be more positive
- Be Proactive – Always keep working on your goals and don’t stop because something went wrong, fit and keep going.
- Don’t Assume Your new solution will work make sure you try your new solutions to make sure they work before you make sure they work before you make all the changes to every area.
- Make Corrections – Fix anything that needs to be corrected or improved.
- Empower all employees to speak up – when staff feel comfortable to give their suggestions freely, you have good morale in your business. If not, you have some work to improve the morale.
- Crowd Source – Learn from others and use their ideas to implement them into your business.
- Use The 5 Why’s – Using this method will help you find the true root cause of the process.
- Be Economical – Do not buy items if you really do not need them in your process.
- Don’t Stop – Your company always needs to improve. If not, a competitor will take your customers and you will lose profits.
Track Kaizen Improvements
It’s a wise decision to keep a record of your Kaizen improvements upon completion, so you can showcase the progress you and your team have made. For tracking the projects or improvements suggested by the staff involved in the process, I have used a Continuous Improvement Tracker which I find useful. This Continuous Improvement Tracker is an effective tool to assess and prioritize the projects in the queue.
See the template below of the CI Tracker template.
This tracker has the following elements to help you prioritize
- Project Number
- Area Affected
- Description of the Issue
- Potential Fix
- Start Date
- Completion Date
With this tracker, you can choose your next Kaizen and work on the improvements for your process.
Your First Kaizen Activity
Now that you have learned about Kaizen and have some great tools to help you improve your process, what kind of improvements are you planning to work on? In case you’re struggling to think of any areas that need improvement, try going to Gemba and closely observing your product or service to identify the areas that can be enhanced.