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Part 14

Training Centers: Bangalore, Chennai and Hyderabad

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Kaizen \ Ki-zen \ a continuous improvementmindset. Everything that we do today can beimproved. Kaizen has no end.

A Healthy Dissatisfaction with the Status Quo

Kaizen

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Kaizen – Continual Improvement Most successful implementations use Kaizen as their base approach for

Continual Improvement. Kaizen stands for “Change for the Better” Kaizen is also known as the PDCA cycle, spoken about first by Dr. William

Edwards Deming. One Kaizen variant is Kaizen Blitz or Kaizen Burst. Kaizen Blitz emphasizes on Rapid or Breakthrough improvement and it is a

focused activity on a particular process. Example, McDonalds inscribing the temperature regulations on their water carrying glasses.

Masaaki Imai credited with popularity of Kaizen.

5 elements/tenets of Kaizen Teamwork Personal Discipline Improved Morale Quality Circles Suggestions for Improvement

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Kaizen Cycle

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Kaizen & Kaizen Blitz

Kaizen is a Japanese term made famous by Massaki Imai in his book Kaizen: The key to Japan’s competitive success(1986) It refers to a mind-set in which all employee are responsible for making continuous incremental improvements to the functions they perform. The aggregate effect of this approach is the cost effective and practical improvements that have instant buy-in by those who use them. Kaizen is an approach to process and enterprise management that recognizes the importance of each employee creative ability & interest in continuous improvement. Barrier includes adversarial attitude & feeling that “its not my job to make my job better”. In some situation this may be overcome by demonstrating successful kaizen blitz events.

A Kaizen Blitz is performed by a team in a short amount of time, usually a few days. The Team focuses on a specific work area with the intent of making low cost improvement that are easy to implement & are often installed during the Blitz.

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Kaizen & Kaizen Blitz (contin..)

The Team should consist of people from the work area, others from similar work areas, technical support, supervisory personnel with decision making responsibilities, and outsiders who can see with “ Fresh Eyes”.

The Blitz begin with some training & team building activities and quickly proceeds to the work area where each function is observed & explained in detail. A side benefit of blitz events is that employees begin to see that their input is valuable & valued, which may lead to more support for the incremental kaizen mindset.

The term Kaizen is used to describe the gradual but continuous improvement process that extends overtime. It has been found to improve processes, products & morale.Kaizen Blitz describes a short term event design to make quick & easy improvement & set the stage for the mindset require for the long term Kaizen approach.

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Mistake proofing (POKA YOKE)

What is Poka Yoke?The real world

-People make mistakesPeople are human

Mistakes are inevitable

Murphy’s Law: “If something can go wrong it will”

The old way to prevent mistakesReprimand workerRetrain workerMotivational talks

Tell them to “be more careful”Tell them to “pay attention

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Mistake proofing (POKA YOKE) Conti.

A better way to prevent mistakesRemove the opportunity for error

Improve the processMake wrong actions more difficult

If you can’t remove the opportunity for errorMake it easier to discover the errors that do occur

Shigeo Shingo invented the Japanese concept called Poka-Yoke (pronounced POH-kah YOH-kay) Poka-Yoke means to mistake proof the process

The essential idea of poka-yoke is to design your process so that mistakes are impossible or at least easily detected and corrected

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• SPC (Statistical Process Control)• SPC is the use of control charts with statistically derived response limits.• It is better than inspection in that it provides insights into trends and

process variation.• SPC’s effectiveness is lessened when management will not empower

workers to stop for investigation. • Effective SPC requires proper training in how to interpret and act on the

charted information. Else, we are just creating wallpaper.

• Inspection• Inspection is never perfect in that some defects go undetected and slip

through.

Mistake Proofing – SPC & Inspection

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Mistake proofing (First Poka-Yoke Device)

Shingo suggested a solution that became the first Poka-Yoke device

In the old method, a worker began by taking two springs out of a large parts box and then assembled a switch

Problem: Sometimes the worker failed to put both springs in the switch

In the new approach, a small plate is placed in front of the parts box and the worker's first task is to take two springs out of the box and place them on the plate

Then the worker assembles the switch. If any spring remains on the plate, then the worker knows that he or she has forgotten to insert it

The new procedure completely eliminated the problem of the missing springs

Empty plate

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Mistake proofing (Categories of Poka-Yoke)

Poka-yoke devices fall into two major categories: PreventionDetection

A prevention device engineers the process so that it is impossible to make a mistake at all

Prevention Example :A classic example of a prevention

Device is the design of a 3.5 inch

computer diskette Impossible to

put in upside down

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