The kaizen pre-event planning phase is critical to event effectiveness. It includes the obvious – event definition from the perspective of scope and targets, team selection, communication and certain acceptable pre-work, but sometimes the simple stuff gets missed. The simple stuff includes kaizen supplies – well organized, in a 5S way!
It’s definitely muda if a kaizen event team(s) is hamstrung, mid-event, while they’re waiting for a handful of cheap stopwatches to get picked up from the local giant box store or waiting for someone to track down some standard operations forms because they were all consumed during the last event and never replaced. The list of possible annoyances is pretty long.
Kaizen events are finite in length, typically three to five days in duration. If it’s a mini-event, it may be a day or so. Time is of the essence! Lost time means delayed or lost improvements and frustrated team members.
So, while we’re trying to implement lean, doesn’t it make sense that the kaizen event supplies are designated, sized, stored, presented and replenished in a lean manner? Of course it does. It just happens that it’s important, but not urgent. At least until that uh-oh moment, when a team determines that they’re missing a necessary supply item.
Sometimes, the reason for this phenomenon is that the organization is just cheap (penny-wise and pound foolish), there is no KPO to worry about this stuff or the KPO isn’t quite up to speed. The kaizen principle of “bias for action” is not an excuse for sloppiness.
See below for a basic list of kaizen event supplies. (Here, I am not talking about the typical 3P-type supplies – cardboard, PVC, plywood, Creform, etc.) Most should be specified, stored and presented point of use in the team’s break-out room. Some things, like laminators, may be shared amongst multiple teams. The KPO should make use of a kaizen team supply list which specifies the standard quantity of each item, item description, a field for an end-of-event inventory count and a field to reflect the quantity which needs to be replenished before the next event.
Of course, some things are difficult to anticipate that they will be needed for the event. For example, a 3X4′ magnetic dry erase board is usually not inventoried. These non-”supermarket” items will have to be bought-to-order during the event.
Stored within Plastic Storage Bin
- 6 clipboards
- 1 set of laminated copies of standard forms (5S audit sheet, time observation form, standard work sheet, etc.)
- 6 stopwatches
- 1 pedometer
- 1 25′ tape measure
- 1 box of pencils (pre-sharpened)
- 3 white erasers
- 1 box of pens
- 1 box of flip chart markers (multi-colors)
- 1 box dry erase markers (multi-colors)
- 1 dry eraser
- 1 18″ ruler
- 6 8.5X11″ legal pads
- 2 calculators
- 1 stapler
- 2 rolls of scotch tape in dispenser
- 2 rolls of masking tape
- 1 box blank overhead projector sheets (for us dinosaurs)
- 1 box paper clips
- 1 box rubber bands
- 3 pkg of yellow sticky notes 3X3″
- 3 pkg of orange sticky notes 3X3″
- 3 pkg of green sticky notes 3X3″
- 1 scissors
- 1 pkg 8.5X11″ multi-color paper
- 1 pkg 11X17″ multi-color paper
- 1 pkg 8.5X11″ laminating pouches
- 1 pkg 11X17″ laminating pouches
- 1 box Sharpies (multi-colored)
- 1 box push pins
- 1 adjustable 3-hole punch
Not Stored within Plastic Bin
- 3 flip chart pads
- 1 box flip chart markers
Shared among Teams
- 1 digital camera
- 1 video camera
- 1 label maker
- 1 laminator
- 1 measuring wheel
- 1 roll 36″ wide kraft paper or white plotter paper
- 1 LCD projector (located in presentation room)
- 1 overhead projector (located in presentation room)
- 1 color printer (11X17″ capable)
Am I missing anything?
Related post: The Kaizen Promotion Office Does What? 8 Critical Deliverables.
I just had an experience that prompted me to think about the effectiveness, or sometimes lack thereof, of visual controls. Yesterday I was at a client site. No kaizen, just training. I was sporting a vistor’s badge (see picture), when one of the class participants said something like, “Hey, you’re expired!” I came back with an intelligent, “Huh?”
The Toyota Production System (TPS) “house” is the model home within the lean business system neighborhood. Its roof of highest quality, lowest cost and shortest lead time is supported by the two pillars of JIT and jidoka. These pillars rest upon a solid foundation of heijunka, standard work and kaizen, which itself rests upon a foundation of stability. Of course, there’s a bit more to the house, not the least of which is the profound simplicity and synergy among these elements. It’s core principles of humility and respect for the individual make it a beautiful house.
The KPO, short for kaizen promotion office or officer (a.k.a. lean promotion office, JIT promotion office, operational excellence, company business system office, continuous improvement office…you get the picture) represents an organization’s “lean function.” That lean function has at least 8 key result areas including change management, kaizen event management and daily kaizen deployment. The KPO has an extremely important role in every lean transformation, so the folks in that group need to have a certain set of core and technical competencies.
Recently, I added a new step to my kaizen event standard work. Just to keep the event team leaders honest, I not only require them to develop leader standard work related to the new “systems” that they have implemented during the kaizen (my old standard work), I actually now make them walk me through the leader standard work, printed and in hand,…at the gemba. This is typically done on a Thursday afternoon if it’s a five day kaizen event.
Imagine that you were only allowed one chart (or board) at the gemba. What would you pick? What is the Swiss Army knife (I’m more of a Leatherman Multitool fan myself) of charts that gives you insight into process adherence and process performance?
Kaizen event team selection is a critical driver of event effectiveness. Selection criteria includes team representation (to promote diversity, perspective, ownership, and development opportunities), size, chemistry, kaizen experience, and behavioral and technical skills. In short, the team, typically six to eight members, should be picked around the event, not vice versa.
Understanding the current reality within the context of time and space is extremely critical. The time observation form is a powerful tool to facilitate direct observation. The form is instrumental in the identification and understanding of waste elimination and variation reduction opportunities. It’s a staple of kaizen and feedstock for standard work combination sheets and process capacity tables.
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