Improve Your Business with the Kaizen System

 

Mike Holt Enterprises follows the principles of Kaizen as part of our business model and we’d like to share these concepts with you.

 

What is Kaizen?

 

Kaizen was created in Japan following World War II. The word Kaizen means "continuous improvement". It comes from the Japanese words "Kai" meaning school and "Zen" meaning wisdom.

Kaizen is a system that involves every employee - from upper management to the cleaning crew. Everyone is encouraged to come up with small improvement suggestions on a regular basis. This is not a once a year, or monthly activity. It is continuous. At Japanese companies, such as Toyota and Canon, 60 to 70 suggestions per employee, per year are written down, shared and implemented.

 

In most cases these are not ideas for major changes. Kaizen is based on making little changes on a regular basis--always improving productivity, safety and effectiveness, and reducing waste.

 

Suggestions are not limited to a specific area such as production or marketing. Kaizen is based on making changes anywhere that improvements can be made. The Kaizen philosophy is to "do it better, make it better, improve it even if it ain't broke, because if we don't, we can't compete with those who do."

 

Western philosophy can be summarized as, "if it ain't broke, don't fix it." The Kaizen philosophy is that everything, even it it ain't broke, can be improved.

 

Kaizen is a system of improvement that in Japan includes both home life as well as business improvements. Kaizen even includes social activities. It is a concept that is applied in every aspect of a person's life.

 

In business Kaizen encompasses many of the components of Japanese businesses that have been seen as a part of their success. Quality circles, automation, suggestion systems, just-in-time delivery, Kamban and 5S are all included within the Kaizen system of running a business.

 

Kaizen involves setting standards and then continually improving those standards. To support the higher standards Kaizen also involves providing the training, materials and supervision that is needed for employees to achieve the higher standards and maintain their ability to meet those standards on an on-going basis.

What Are The Benefits Resulting From Kaizen?

Kaizen involves every employee in making change--in most cases small, incremental changes. It focuses on identifying problems at their source, solving them at their source, and changing standards to ensure the problem stays solved. It's not unusual for Kaizen to result in 25 to 30 suggestions per employee, per year, and to have bover 90% of those implemented.

For example, Toyota is well-known as one of the leaders in using Kaizen. In 1999 at one U.S. plant, 7,000 Toyota employees submitted over 75,000 suggestions, of which 99% were implemented.

These continual small improvements add up to major benefits. They result in improved productivity, improved quality, better safety, faster delivery, lower costs, and greater customer satisfaction. On top of these benefits to the company, employees working in Kaizen-based companies generally find work to be easier and more enjoyable--resulting in higher employee moral and job satisfaction, and lower turn-over.

With every employee looking for ways to make improvements, you can expect results such as:

Kaizen Reduces Waste in areas such as inventory, waiting times, transportation, worker motion, employee's skills, over production, excess quality and in processes.

Kaizen Improves space utilization, product quality, use of capital, communications, production capacity and employee retention.

Kaizen Provides immediate results. Instead of focusing on large, capital intensive improvements, Kaizen focuses on creative investments that continually solve large numbers of small problems. Large, capital projects and major changes will still be needed, and Kaizen will also improve the capital projects process, but the real power of Kaizen is in the on-going process of continually making small improvements that improve processes and reduce waste.

Learn how Fleetwood benefited from implementing Kaizen in this article reprinted from Quality Digest. And read about how Sony, in Terra Haute, Indiana, used Kaizen to dramatically improve production in an article reprinted from Manufacturing & Technology News.

Getting Started With Kaizen

There is more to implementing Kaizen than we can include on a single web page. However, the following serves as an overview of introducing Kaizen into an American workplace.

For most American companies Kaizen involves a significant change in the corporate culture. This is key. The attitudes of employees - from top management down to new hires will need to change. Kaizen needs to become something all employees do because they want to, and because they know it is good for them and the company. It can not be something employees do because management dictates that it be done.

That means that, if management isn't ready to lead by example, Kaizen will not get off the ground.

Employee training and communication is important. Combined with that, direct management involvement is critical. For example, a manager spending a week on the shop floor, working with employees to help and encourage them to develop suggestions will help. That manager should also ensure employees see their suggestions acted on--immediately. Suggestions should not be implemented next month or next week--but today. In some cases, a suggestion submitted in the morning can be implemented that afternoon, or sooner.

Keep employees informed about what happens with their suggestions. Don't have suggestions disappear into a management "black hole."

To get Kaizen started it can be helpful to bring in outside experts. They can work in your facility identifying problems that those close to the work may not see. This serves as a "seed" allowing employees to see how Kaizen works and to experience the benefits of Kaizen.

A significant obsticle to Kaizen in many corporations is that problems are seen as negatives. We don't like problems. Someone who is associated with a problem is likely to be negatively impacted (a lower raise, missed promotion, or even fired). In Kaizen problems are opportunities to improve. With Kaizen we want to find, report and fix problems. Kaizen encourages and rewards the identification of problems by all employees.

To encourage the submission of suggestions, a part of each supervisor's evaluation should be based on the number of suggestions submitted by those they supervise. Don't evaluate employees on the number of suggestions they submit, evaluate your supervisors and managers and how well they are doing at getting those who work for them to actively participate in Kaizen.

Managers should develop methods to help create suggestions and increase the number of suggestions. For example, set up teams or five to 12 people to evaluate work areas, processes, quality, productivity, and equipment availability/reliability. The team then makes suggestions for improvements, and they may even implement those improvements.

Keep in mind that Kaizen is about action. Taking action to generate suggestions, and taking action to implement those suggestions immediately.

Train employees in using Kaizen tools such as 5S, Kanban, and Line Balancing.

Five S

 

What is a Five S?

 

A Five S program is usually a part of, and the key component of Visual Factory (Workplace) Management (VFM). And 5s and VFM are both a part of Kaizen -- a system of continual improvement -- which is a component of lean manufacturing.

The Five S program focuses on having visual order, organization, cleanliness and standardization. The results you can expect from a Five S program are: improved profitability, efficiency, service and safety.

The precipices underlying a Five S program at first appear to be simple, obvious common sense. And they are. But until the advent of Five S programs many businesses ignored these basic principles.

What types of businesses benefit from a Five S program?

Everyone and all types of business benefit from having a Five S program.

Manufacturing and industrial plants come to mind first, as those are the business that can realize the greatest benefits. However, any type of business, from a retail store to a power plant -- from hospitals to television stations -- all types of businesses, and all areas within a business, will realize benefits from implementing a Five S program.

What are the Five S's?

Use the following links to learn more about 5S

• Sort - the first step in making things cleaned up and organized
• Systematize - organize, identify and arrange everything in a work area
• Sweep - regular cleaning and maintenance
• Standardize - make it easy to maintain - simplify and standardize
• Self-Discipline -maintaining what has been accomplished

 

Step 1 – Sort (Clean Up)

"Sorting" means to sort through everything in each work area. Keep only what is necessary. Materials, tools, equipment and supplies that are not frequently used should be moved to a separate, common storage area. Items that are not used should be discarded.

Don't keep things around just because they might be used, someday.

Sorting is the first step in making a work area tidy. It makes it easier to find the things you need and frees up additional space.

As a result of the sorting process you will eliminate (or repair) broken equipment and tools. Obsolete fixtures, molds, jigs, scrap material, waste and other unused items and materials are disposed of.

 

Step 2 – Systematize (Organize)

Step two is to organize, arrange and identify everything in a work area for the most efficient and effective retrieval and return to its proper place.

Commonly used tools should be readily available. Storage areas, cabinets and shelves should be properly labeled. Clean and paint floors to make it easier to spot dirt, waste materials and dropped parts and tools. Outline areas on the floor to identify work areas, movement lanes, storage areas, finished product areas, etc. Put shadows on tool boards, making it easy to quickly see where each tool belongs.

In an office, provide bookshelves for frequently used manuals, books and catalogs. Labels the shelves and books so that they are easy to identify and return to their proper place.

The objective in this step is: A place for everything and everything in it's place, with everything properly identified and labeled.

This means there are two important parts to Systematic Organization - putting everything in its proper place and setting up a system so that it is easy to return each item to its proper place. The second part is where good labeling and identification practices are important. Both the equipment/tools and materials you use, as well as their proper storage locations, need to be clearly identified and labeled.

Systematic organization not only refers to individual work areas. Your overall facility should also be systematically organized, including the proper placement of easy-to-understand labels and signs. Piping, valves, control panels, major equipment, doorways, minor equipment, instruments, storage areas, offices and files should all be clearly identified.

 

Step 3 – Sweep (Regular Cleaning)

Once you have everything, from each individual work area up to your entire facility, sorted (cleaned up) and organized, you need to keep it that way. This requires regular cleaning, or to go along with our third S, "shining" things up.

Regular, usually daily, cleaning is needed or everything will return to the way it was. This could also be thought of as inspecting. While cleaning it's easy to also inspect the machines, tools, equipment and supplies you work with.

Regular cleaning and inspection makes it easy to spot lubricant leaks, equipment misalignment, breakage, missing tools and low levels of supplies. Problems can be identified and fixed when they are small. If these minor problems are not addressed while small, they could lead to equipment failure, unplanned outages or long - unproductive - waits while new supplies are delivered.

When done on a regular, frequent basis, cleaning and inspecting generally will not take a lot of time, and in the long run will most likely save time.

 

 

Step 4 – Standardize (Simplify)

To ensure that the first three steps in your Five S program continue to be effective, the fourth step is to simplify and standardize.

The good practices developed in steps 1 through 3 should be standardized and made easy to accomplish. Develop a work structure that will support the new practices and make them into habits. As you learn more, update and modify the standards to make the process simpler and easier.

One of the hardest steps is avoiding old work habits. It's easy to slip back into what you've been doing for years. That's what everyone is familiar with. It feels comfortable.

Use standards to help people work into new habits that are a part of your Five S program.

Any easy way to make people aware of, and remind them about the standards is to use labels, signs, posters and banners.

For example, use a PosterPrinter to create large format signs, posters and banners. A PosterPrinter is a machine that takes an 8-1/2" x 11" original and enlarges it to poster size. You can also create posters and banners on your computer and print them directly on your PosterPrinter.

For labels and smaller signs consider an custom label printer. Label printers are available ranging from simple, monochrome models to machines that can print color labels cut into custom shapes.

 

Step 5 – Self-Discipline

The final step is to continue training and maintaining the standards.

Have a formal system for monitoring the results of your Five S program.

Don't expect that you can clean up, get things organized and labeled, and ask people to clean and inspect their areas every day -- and then have everything continue to happen without any follow-up.

Continue to educate people about maintaining standards. When there are changes - such as new equipment, new products, new work rules - that will effect your Five S program, and adjustments to accommodate those changes, make any needed changes in the standards and provide training that addresses those changes.

Using 5s Posters and Signs: A good way to continue educating employees, and for maintain standards, is to use 5s posters and signs. You can create your own custom 5S posters, allowing you to communicate the secific information that needs to be communicated at each location. Changing work habits can be difficult, and it is easy to slip back into doingthings the old, comfortable way. Use custom 5S posters to remind employees of the proper proceedures, and of the benefits that come from following a 5s plan.

Think of this step as sustaining the benefits you are getting from your Five S program.

What will it cost?

Realistically you probably will need to spend some extra money to get your Five S program going. There will be training time; man-hours spent to get your facility cleaned up and organized; equipment purchases; and time spent on sustaining your Five S program once it is in place.

Your actual costs will depend on where you are now - for example what is the condition of your facility? The further you are from meeting the goals of a Five S program, the more it will cost to implement one and the greater the benefits you'll see as a result of your Five S program.

 

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