Blog. Kaizen Event | Performance Improvement

Kaizen Event

Rapid Improvement Methodology

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Today organizations are in constant disruption and on the move. Nothing happens until something moves. Start today. A proven methodology to achieve successfull rapid improvement is the kaizen event workshop. Based on our experience we share a structured approach to organize kaizen events.

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Why a Kaizen event? To improve delivery time, improve quality or reduce costs.

What are the criteria to start a kaizen event?

Urgent problem, limited scope and complexity (max. duration 3months)
Teamwork effort by actual workers involved
The actual way of working can be observed
Brainstorm and be creative coming up with improvement actions

The selection of key priorities and allocation of resources and time is subject to senior management support. Before you start the kaizen event determine the process you want to improve* and set goals. Select project team members wisely and schedule a kickoff meeting for senior management to brief the project team.

Day 1

Map it out. Co-create a debriefing, develop a rough project charter and planning based on shared understanding of the goals.

Day 2

Go look and see at the production line. Interview workers, observe, measure and question the current process. Document the baseline. educate and train the workers.

Day 3

Ask why (5x) and redesign the work process; brainstorm, test and measure potential improvement actions. This is a group effort, as such seek the wisdom of the team. Set the go live date, just do it and don’t seek perfection.

Day 4

Define and debug. Watch the work process repeatedly looking for ways to improve. Document the “new” standard way of working.

Day 5

Sustain and celebrate. Design a control plan to monitor the process and have a warm handover session. Present the kaizen event to management and celebrate with the project team.

Illustration

A picture says more than 1.000 words. A video is worth 30k pictures, but an experience is worth much more. In case you are interested in Kaizen, see below.

Illustration Video

A picture says more than 1.000 words. A video is worth 30k pictures, but an experience is worth much more. Let's start with a short video on Simplicity go to Toyota Kaizen.

note (*) where there is no standard, there can be no improvement. For these reasons, standards are the basis for both maintenance and improvement

…with our head in the sky and feet in the mud