| Purpose/ outcomes |
To install a culture able to initiate and sustain change by
- providing skills to improve processes;
- enabling employees to make daily improvements;
- installing JIT systems and lean process methods in administrative systems; and
- improving equipment reliability and product quality.
|
| Number of participants |
6 - 12 participants per improvement team |
| Type of Participants |
People from the entire value chain:
- suppliers
- core and support business processes
- distribution chain of distribution
- customers
|
| Typical Duration |
Preparation: Up to 3 days per process
Event: 3 - 5 days per process
Total Transition: At least 3 years
|
| Brief Example |
Equipment acquisition proposal/quote development time was reduced from 69 to 23 days for internal quotes and 89 to 33 days for external quotes. John Rothwell, Manager, Mechanical Design and Systems Development at Rockwell Automation/ Allen Bradley Company reported "if you need a testimonial to the power of Kaizen in administration, we can attest that it works wonders. It has opened our eyes to waste in our process and proved its value in reducing our delivery times and project costs. We found we don't build machinery; we manage the machinery building process. A large degree of over-processing, correction and waiting time were the big culprits." |
| When to Use |
- This can be implemented almost any time
- When leadership commitment is profoundly present
- A process or resource improvement is required
- The company's competitive position in terms of quality, cost and delivery or time to market is slow or threatened
- The need to improve process lead-time of all processes is not always obvious
|
| When Not to Use |
- No top leadership commitment is evident
- High conflict between management and labor
- If you don't believe in the possibilities
|
| Impact on cultural assumptions |
- Impact is high on cross-functional collaboration
- Discovery by senior management that process workers have great ability to improve work processes if trained and allowed to contribute
- Positive impact on the relationship between management and labor
- Management at all levels demonstrates challenging leadership role
- Focus changes from fire fighting to prevention strategies
- Greater emphasis on balancing Process with Results
- Organizational culture of non-blaming/non judgementalism required at all levels
- Whole systems view a necessity
|
| Creator(s) |
KAIZEN philosophy described as a whole system by Masaaki Imai |
| Creation Date |
Described as a whole system in 1986 |
| Historical Context Theory |
- Post WWII Japanese reconstruction using USA management experts such as Deming, Juran
- Japanese companies developed JIT production system, Total Quality focus and employee involvement starting in 1950's
- Toyota Production System elements of Just in Time production, Total Quality Systems, Total Productive Maintenance created by Taiichi Ohno; other methods introduced by Kaoru Ishikawa, Seiichi Nakajima, and others
- Total Quality popularized in the USA by Phillip Crosby in mid 1980's; World Class manufacturing described in USA by Richard Schonberger, Robert Hall and others
- Methods used in GembaKAIZEN workshops based on adult learning/experiential learning and organizational learning theory from David Kolb, Malcolm S. Knowles, K. Patricia Cross, Peter Senge, Chris Argyris and others
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