I recently conducted a free one hour webinar on the subject of kaizen event malpractice, its causes, effects and how to avoid them. More positively, the topic was largely on how to side-step the snares of tool-driven kaizen, how to securely apply, grow into and sustain system-driven kaizen and ultimately set the foundation for principle-driven kaizen.
The webinar was graciously hosted by Society of Manufacturing Engineer’s Chapter 7 from Hartford, CT with the assistance of SME National. The SME webinar library link is right HERE if you would like to view the slides and listen to the audio.
By the way, my less than clinical definition of kaizen event malpractice is the “dereliction of duty due to negligence or incompetence by a leader, practitioner or organization.” Malpractice has a number of effects, including the following:
- poor linkage to strategic and value stream imperatives
- little or no measurable business impact
- unsustainable results
- unfavorable employee experience
- limited organizational learning and growth, and an
- insufficient foundation for daily kaizen.
I hope the webinar adds value for those who access the library.
In conjunction with SME National, I’ll be conducting a three-part webinar series on kaizen in October. Please refer to SME Webinar Central under the October 19 and 21 offerings.
Related posts: The Post-Value Stream Analysis Hangover, There Is No Kaizen Bus Stop!
Strange name, “bowling chart,” but it’s a simple and powerful tool. It forces critical thinking around breakthrough objectives and facilitates typically monthly checkpoints that help drive accountability, PDCA and ultimately execution. When matched up with a Gantt chart (the combination is cleverly called a “bowling and Gantt chart”), it’s pretty cool stuff.
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!
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.
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.
I recently facilitated a five team, week long kaizen event. The teams made some very significant improvements (more kaikaku than kaizen). There was one team that I was especially concerned about from the very beginning – their scope was fairly expansive, the challenges not trivial by any means and the team members not exactly lean experts. So, I stayed on them quite a bit, coaching, cajoling, poking and prodding.
Every once in a while I will come upon someone who will share their recently identified business problem. Great first step. But, then they’ll state their plan to address that problem in the next kaizen event. And oh, by the way, that kaizen event may not be for another MONTH! It’s like they’re waiting at the kaizen bus stop for the next scheduled opportunity to make an improvement. Now, I understand that sometimes this make sense given the complexity and magnitude of the problem. But this is often the exception, not the rule. Kaizen events are great training grounds for employees to learn, by doing, how to apply PDCA thinking…so that they can then do it virtually all the time, as real time as possible. We can’t be sitting on our hands waiting for the next kaizen bus!
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