Kaizan - Kaizen - Looking for information on setting up a Kaizan system

[Marc]

I was crusing the NGs and saw this. I came back here and did a search and nothing came up for Kaizan!?!

Just thought I'd start a thread on Kaizan using Wayne's NG posting. Any comments or clarifications on what Kaizan is from forums users here? Links you might suggest?

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From: "Wayne Lundberg"
Newsgroups: misc.industry.quality
Subject: Re: Kaizan
Date: Mon, 28 Jan 2002 17:26:19 GMT
Organization: AT&T Worldnet

"john.husband" wrote in message

> I am looking for information on setting up a Kaizan system within in a
> medium size company with approx 200 employees. I am particularly
intrested.
-----snip-----

I have implemented a form of Kaizan, a step by step process for continuous improvement with great success in several plants. First and foremost you must get the senior executive to buy into the process completely. Without his/her support at the top nothing will work.

I will describe the steps, but here is what you will end up with: The managers will be asked by the CEO for their two biggest problems or opportunities on a regular basis. The managers, supervisors and workers will be trained in how to respond. The response will be a short description of the problem/opportunity followed by a pocket Pareto analysis followed by a short description of the proposed project to either eliminate the problem or capitalize on the opportunity.

The Pareto is something being done by everybody in your organization. It's nothing more than a folded pied of notebook paper where you write a word or two about the problem you observe or opportunity you are thinking of. Every time you see the same problem or opportunity you put a tick mark next to the word. You do this forever. At the end of a couple of weeks you will see at once which are your two greatest problems or opportunities. You can show this to your boss when he asks.

Next is for you and your whole company to be trained in converting these prob/opps into the language of money. If we don't fix the mixer, we will be losing $55 in saleable stuff every day" It will cost $500 to fix it. Our payback will be in about ten days" and you use this ROI to sell your idea to your boss.

Next is for everybody in the company to learn how to initiate and manage a project. Start with my online course on project management, free, no come-ons, no obligation - in Spanish at -- http://home.att.net/~Waynelund/proyectos.htm
or in English at: http://home.att.net/~Waynelund/projectmanagement.htm

For a complete series of case studies on how this system has been implemented, and a step by step procedure for learning, teaching and implementing it go to: http://home.att.net/~Waynelund/spira1.PDF and be ready for a long download since it's quite long.

I am an Email away for any question or to brainstorm with you at any time.

Wayne Lundberg, CMfgE

[M Greenaway]

Marc

Would a search under KAIZEN be any more productive ?

[Marc]

Ok - call me stupid. Yes - you're right. I screwed up the spelling...

[E Wall]

I've also seen miss-spellings (internally at my company) where the preson references a Kaisen event. Always have to prepare yourself for several variables - human error common.

[Kevin Mader]

Wayne’s posting is pretty much on target although over simplified (I’d guess he was just putting a teaser out there, so I don’t read too much into that). I’d like to stress that without senior level buy in, the program will wither away and disappear. Later, it will be reborn as some latest crave like Lean Manufacturing with mostly subtle differences appealing to localized/current trends.

So what is it that about Kaizen that we would like to talk about? Experiences or more along the line of the methodology?

Regards,

Kevin

[db]

Senior management buy-in is critical, but so is doing it right. Too many times I’ve see “Kaizen Blitz” being held. The change can be almost overwhelming! The problem, if there is no foundational support, things will quickly slide back to where they were. In order to properly implement Kaizen, the organization must first often go through a cultural change. This must be led from the top. Kaizen is more than just “incremental improvement”. It is planned incremental improvements. Of course the plan should change as the organization improves, but the plan must precede the event. A good resource for Kaizen is the local Manufacturing Extension Partnership (In the US). You can find them at www.mep.nist.gov