How to Capture and Share Project Lessons and Improvement Ideas?

What according to the members of thjis group is a successful way of capturing re-usable knowledge from lean projects/kaizens ? Also, what's the key to ensure that such knowledge is actually "re-used" so that wheels are not re-invented ? Can someone share any template in this regard ?

Any Lean/Kaizen experts who can help?

Thank you very much.

Stijloor.

shirshen said:

What according to the members of thjis group is a successful way of capturing re-usable knowledge from lean projects/kaizens ? Also, what's the key to ensure that such knowledge is actually "re-used" so that wheels are not re-invented ? Can someone share any template in this regard ?

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I can not speak specifically for Lean or Kaizen, but when I did improvement projects I made out a project plan, kept it updated and kept records of updates. I decided upon measureables (before, during and after measurements) and monitored them over time.

Any time I am involved in an improvement project the combination of measureables and project plan produces information/data. Record all the information/data and keep it consolidated in a 'file' so it is easy to look at a project and the results. Years ago I used 3 ringed binders. These days you can easily use a computer directory.

I can't give you a key to ensure that such knowledge is actually "re-used" other than to incorporate what is shown to work into the appropriate system(s) via procedures and/or criteria and to require that future projects look to past projects in their preparation stage.

It's much like problem solving. You have a problem. You develop a plan to investigate the problem. Part of that plan is to research prior times that the problem, or a similar problem, occurred. You find a solution. Along the way you document what you do/try. You record what fails to work as well as what appears to work. From that you look to see if there are other places where the same, or a similar, process is in use and you apply the solution there as well.

Found there are useful templates in SharePoint for this part... especially building a knowledge base with things like wiki's etc. Very easy to use don't need to be a programmer to play about in here.
Have also found that minutes of meetings etc are useful, especially if you put the issues in a register, howeved depends on the number of improvements making etc.

shirshen said:

What according to the members of thjis group is a successful way of capturing re-usable knowledge from lean projects/kaizens ? Also, what's the key to ensure that such knowledge is actually "re-used" so that wheels are not re-invented ? Can someone share any template in this regard ?

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Greetings everyone,

Toyota's concept for this is "yokoten" which roughly translates to "spread across". Yoko is Japanese for "side" so you could also consider it as "sideways sharing". For Toyota, the learning and then subsequent sharing of those learnings from their autonomous study groups (the forerunner of today's kaizen events), was a key part in enabling them to leapfrog the competition.

Some of Toyota's concepts and practices were clearly Toyota, but the key concept behind yokoten is to use what is learned in one process or area as a catalyst for improvement in another. Somethings can not just be copied into an area, but may require a few "tweaks" to allow it to work. A couple of things to consider regarding this concept when trying to determine what should or should not be disseminated widely:

1) The concept should only require minimal adjustments for it to be usable in other areas or processes.

and

2) The time and effort necessary to transplant the learnings, don't exceed the benefits


Toyota was notorious for maintaining a huge internal library of all the things they were learning back in the earlier days. I suspect it has been made much easier today thanks to technology, but given their recent quality issues, I doubt it they have been as diligent as they once were.

Wayne

shirshen said:

What according to the members of thjis group is a successful way of capturing re-usable knowledge from lean projects/kaizens ? Also, what's the key to ensure that such knowledge is actually "re-used" so that wheels are not re-invented ? Can someone share any template in this regard ?

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Hello Shirshen Welcome to the Cove

Marc and Wmarhel have given you sound advise. I am a Toyota fan and 'Yokoten' is imbibed deep in their work culture. The trick to apply yokoten (horizontal transfer of knowledge/information) is to make sure that someone is made responsible to accumulate the knowledge at the place of its development. (The A3 reports are excellent tools.) In addition, the person responsible for accumulating the knowledge must be available to help share it with others in the organisation. I have seen that many organisations accumulate the information, and expect that those in need will come and collect. This is a sure way to fail.

Simultaneously, the managers must understand that most learning occurs horizontally, and that they need to personally ‘see it’. Direct observation on the ‘actual place’ of happening, by a gemba walk, is the best way to learn.

Another very important point is that one should not just 'copy' the aquired knowledge while applying at a different place. The accumulated knowledge must be modified (using kaizen) to suit the application.

Umang

Hi !

In my dept. I had installed a responsible person to overview the problems and their solving and to insert them in our Lessons Learned Intranet tool. Like this, we hae the same knowledge of the problems world wide.

The tool allows you to search, see the whole list, add new topic.