Kaizen Principles & the PDCA Approach
The Kaizen Philosophy
Implementing kaizen as an action plan through a continuous and long-term plan of effective events enables workers think out of the box with respect to their daily activities. Consistent enforcement and involvement of workers in Kaizen events as an action plan results in extended value in turn, creating the culture that is required for effective continuous improvement.
Kaizen works better with the combination of other Lean methodologies such as 5S and Standardized Work. 5S offers current state analysis of the work patterns. Whereas standardized work narrates the present best practices for a process. Combining these two approaches; Kaizen targets to fill gaps as improvements for those processes.
Kaizen is simply refers to continuous improvement; applied by organizations in which employees at all levels of the organization work cohesively and proactively to gain consistent, small incremental improvement to the business process. It assists in creating synergy within the organization's distinct talents to create a robust engine for continuous improvement. It is a philosophy as well as a plan for action.
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Kaizen 11 specific principles include the following:
- Continuously improving all issues.
- Modifying old and traditional concepts.
- Giving no chance for excuses and making things happen.
- Neglecting the status quo. Implementing new methods and hoping that it works.
- If something comes proves to be out of standard, correct it.
- Involving everyone to contribute to problem-solving.
- Seeking and accepting opinions from multiple people.
- Apply the 5 Why decision-making methods, by asking “why” five times to get to the root cause.
- Think in terms of economy. Save money through incremental improvements and spend the use of money on further improvements.
- Always remembering that improvement has no limits.
- Never stop improving.
Kaizen PDCA Approach
The PDCA cycle representing Plan, Do, Check, and Act, brings about a scientific approach to making improvements:
- Plan – This phase is meant to develop a hypothesis for an improvement. It includes a plan for a number of improvement measures.
- Do – The ‘do phase’ directs the implementation of the hypothesis.
- Check – Here, the hypothesis for improvement is either validated or new findings are embarked upon when the hypothesis is not validated.
- Act - If the hypothesis is validated, the improvement is standardized through SDCA cycle. If the hypothesis is not validated, then a root cause analysis is done and new measures are identified for improvement.
About the Author
Adebayo is a thought leader in continuous process improvement and manufacturing excellence. He is a Certified Six Sigma Master Black Belt (CSSMBB) Professional and Management Systems Lead Auditor (ISO 9001, 45001, ISO 22000/FSSC 22000 etc.) with strong experience leading various continuous improvement initiative in top manufacturing organizations.
You can reach him here.
