The Ultimate Guide to Kaizen Method and Philosophy
Kaizen 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.
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 Principles
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.
Benefits of Kaizen
One of the major benefits of Kaizen is the fact that it is continuous and not a time-oriented process. Changes are brought to the organization’s processes within a rational timeline. Kaizen acknowledges emphasis on the possibilities of improvement. This concept helps employees and managers to implement Kaizen in organizations. Because of the advantages of continuous improvement, company owners, managers should consider applying Kaizen in their organization.
Kaizen Implementation
Here are the seven steps to apply Kaizen in any organization:
1st Step: Involve employees for Kaizen
Before proceeding for Kaizen, the first step is to involve the organization’s employees because it will help organizations carry out the project smoothly with employee support. The Kaizen application requires the involvement of employees. They need to be motivated. You need to have a workplace free from the resistance to change. This requires the cooperation of the workforce and interaction between leaders and workforce.
2nd Step: Find and List Problems
In this second step, start with a review of the workplace and involve the workers in the process. The review will help you in finding the problem in the workplace. If these problems are rectified, the organization will be more productive. Issues can be in relation to any department, such as marketing department, production department, finance department or any other area where improvements are required. The deliverable of this step is the list of problems. Then these problems are shortlisted based on the impact and reasonable overcoming factor of controlling it. Kaizen is not a one-time thing, but it is a continuous process. However, it is important, to begin with, a small set of problems and then improve on an ongoing basis.
3rd Step: Think and Find Solutions
Managers can formulate creative persons in a team who are capable of. These professionals can focus on problem-solving. They might have to allocate time to search for solutions to the problems; the site is facing. It is always better to have multiple brains instead of one to generate optimum solutions for a given problem. Do not rush for solutions, allow the team to think deeply with due time and develop some alternative solution on the basis of
- Cost,
- Time to implement the solution,
- Resources involved, and
- The impact of the solution.
Based on the above four criteria, the list of solutions can be analyzed out of which the most suitable can selected.
4th Step: Implement the Solution
Before implementing solutions on a large scale, pilot implementation should be adopted. It proves to be one of the most workable ways to test out a new proposal of a solution particularly in big organizations. They think of creating big changes in organizations, which is not even possible as it will affect the daily processes of organizations. At this time, the application must be done in an organized manner. If the ideas proposed needs to improve a bit more, then by anyway, manage the team's excitement and establish the workability of idea on the table before applying it in the company.
5th Step: Check the Implementation
It isn’t enough to develop solutions. Effective application of developed solutions is important. There is need to regularly check the effectiveness of implementation through auditing and other forms of assessment. Proper implementation needs to be conducted on the floor level to ensure that the solution can yield right results. Regular audits need to be conducted and the progress needs to be monitored. Checking the results is the main target of kaizen.
6th Step: Standardize the implementation
If the checks do not yield positive outcome, apply alternative ideas initially conceived on the table. This should continue until the most appropriate solution is generated. On the other hand, if the outcomes were positive with improved processes, then the process must be standardized across all sections so that the company operates more efficiently and productively. Standardization is the best outcome of implementing Kaizen. Standardization saves time, energy and boosts employee morale, which consequently results in more productivity. Standardization also stands for helping workers by having standard procedures which they need to implement and by avoiding the bureaucracy at a minimal level.
7th Step: Repeat
The core aim of kaizen is “slow and gradual incremental change”. The complete procedure can be repeated again so that another shortlisted idea can be optimized. The repetition of these steps for an extended period of time will enable the alignment of the organization’s culture with the Kaizen culture which is focused on removing waste and enhancing processes so that everything runs efficiently.
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), Digital Manufacturing Professional and ISO Management Systems Lead Auditor (ISO 9001, 45001 & ISO 22000) with strong experience leading various continuous improvement initiative in top manufacturing organizations.
You can reach him here.
