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2019.06.11
Yukio Kakiuchi’s Kaizen diary 9 As a consultant I can’t get sick once the consulting schedule is fixed with the customer. So I’m thinking about how I can always be healthy.
At that time, I heard that health is made by the three factors of mind, body and food. Therefore, I am doing something good I believe in those three. Let me introduce some of them. First, I would like to write about what I do for the mind.
Since the irritability of the mind is bad for health, I practice mindfulness by breathing slowly and deeply to calm myself every night. The tool I use is an electroencephalograph called “Muse”. It works in conjunction with a smartphone to visualize the state of brain waves with sounds and graphs. I am happy when my brain waves change to loose alpha waves from the beta waves and delta waves which come out when I’m in tension.
Muse
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2019.01.19
Yukio Kakiuchi’s Kaizen diary 8 The year 2019 has begun. The speed of change might increase further in various ways this year .
The Olympic Games Tokyo will be held a year and a half later and the preparations will take place much more. Incredible many people that none of us Japanese has experienced yet may come to Japan and stay from all the world only for one month.
So many people at one time from various countries, then, what is the accommodation? The transportation? the payment? There are a lot of problems under the present systems.
Therefore, accommodation and driving services using smartphones and AI, and digital cashless payment will spread all at once.
This year there is no doubt that the declining birthrate and aging population will continue and new technological advances like AI will accelerate. What will be required for manufacturing will also change drastically.
We can’t stop the change. But we can prepare. All we need to do is Kaizen without fear of failures, with all of us together. Means to cope with change is Kaizen. This is the keyword of this year.
It seems difficult….
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2018.12.28
Yukio Kakiuchi’s Kaizen diary 7 It is almost year-end. At this time of the year, I have kept saying “Time flies!”. It is really very fast!!
The end of the year is the time to look back the year to finish and to think of the coming year. It is time to execute Check and Plan of P – D – C – A cycle. So, I’d like to try out the C – A – P – D cycle based on what have happened recently around me.
I was chatting with some managers in a meeting a few weeks ago. One person (A department manager Mr. A) said, “Our company has insufficient power to challenge new things.” Then I asked him, “What can’t you do in your company?”. He answered, “I do not have any concrete idea, though …”. “Our company” was also about “I”. I thought that all the managers which Mr. A belongs are saying the same. Such a company has a very small amount of Kaizen ideas and little improvement.
On the other hand, at the company D, we ran the KZ method by 10 people including the president a few days ago. Each person stack cards to things that are not used immediately, moved them outside, and everyone discussed and made a good conclusion on overall optimum Kaizen. The site became very refreshing! After the activity, all the 10 people spoke about the activities of next year clearly. The implementation plan for Kaizen in the early years was also concrete. I thought the company D was reliable.
The difference between Company A and Company D is whether they do Kaizen immediately or not. Nothing will happen no matter how much you analyze how difficult it is or how to take responsibility in case of failure. On the other hand, if improvement is carried out just by doing the KZ method by everyone in front of the actual thing and further ideas come out lot more immediately.
2019 is the year of action! Let ‘s do Kaizen enjoying with Waiwai Gayagaya.
Thank you very much for your great support this year and have a happy new year!!
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2018.11.09
Yukio Kakiuchi’s Kaizen diary 6 I cannot proceed my job with my own pace. Once the consulting schedule is fixed with the client, I must visit the factory on the day because many people are waiting for me. Therefore, it is necessary for me to keep the condition always good.
In this way, I have written about masks and breathing method. And I received a mail from a reader, “Consulting is a hard job …”, but it is not true. It is because I am a health geek.
Then let me keep writing in this line.
I believe that continuous exercise is good for health. So, I walk much every day. I want to walk at least 10,000 steps a day. The number of walk steps is large because my workplace is factory shop-floors. But just walking on shop-floors is not enough to walk 10000 steps. So, I do light jogging about 3,000 steps in the morning. I do not jog on a rainy day, so I do not necessarily make 10,000 steps every day but achieve 70,000 steps in a week.
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2018.10.19
Improvement diary of consultant 5 I cannot proceed my job with my own pace. Once the consulting schedule is fixed with the client, I must visit the factory on the day because many people are waiting for me. Therefore, it is necessary for me to keep the condition always good.
I mentioned that I am a health geek before. The health item which is the oldest among the otaku items of mine is the “breath control”.
There are various breathing methods in the world, but the breathing method that I practice is a very simple one. I breathe out slowly and quietly and breathe in again slowly and quietly. That’s all.
After today’s work is finished, I will start the breathing on the Shinkansen train by which I move to the workshop tomorrow. I repeat fifteen round trip breathing in about 10 minutes (one trip is 40seconds). I will do it slowly and quietly so as not to be thought that I am a strange man by the person aside me.
after having calmed down by breath control, I start enjoying the trip with tea and sweets (episode 94).
References: “Ki’s Breathing Method” by Koichi Tohei, Gentosha
http://amzn.asia/d/9Yn1i9X -
2018.09.20
Yukio Kakiuchi’s Kaizen diary 4 Since I go on business trips from factory to factory almost every day, I have a lot of belongings. The weight of my bag becomes almost 20 kg because I pack my PC, books, and spare clothes for one week.
I am often asked “it is tough to move with such heavy baggage, what kind of bags are you using?” I love this question because I am proud of my bag.It is a business bag made by SWANY Corporation, and I have been using it almost since I became a consultant. I have been a heavy user for about 25 years. Why is that so good? The developer of the bag, Mr. Etsuo Miyoshi (former president) has the aftereffect of severe polio, but he was moving around the world as a salesman with great vitality. However, big luggage was occasionally very difficult to move because of the handicap. Then he made a good bag that everyone can use easily from his own experience. It’s amazing improvement, isn’t it!
For details, I would like you to see the website of the company. Point is, it is not a pulling type, but it is a pushing type, so it is safe. And because it can be pushed at the position of natural hand position it is also a substitute for my walking stick. Besides, the sound of the caster is small. There are tremendously loud noise bags which are not good to use late in the night.
I use a SWANY bag for two years. Since I move with the bag carrying 20 kg and for at least 3000 steps every day, I change tires after about a year. The other day, the tire was broken after a year, I replaced them for new ones. I will use my bag for another year to be supported.
Suwanee Corporation Website
https://swany-shop.jp/
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2018.08.29
Yukio Kakiuchi’s Kaizen diary 3 I am a consultant to teach Kaizen. So, when I go to a factory I speak a lot of Kaizen plans and surprise everyone around me! … but to tell the truth, it is me who is surprised.
Let me show you a Kaizen which surprised me recently. The Kaizen was done in the Kagoshima factory of Parts Seiko Co., Ltd. and was announced at an Kaizen meeting held in the headquarters in Misato-shi, Saitama prefecture.
It is a Kaizen which changed a normal continuous white line to a dotted line. I have not seen such a line. First, I was not impressed by the Kaizen because I could not find the effects other than reduction of the amount of tapes.
Actually, this Kaizen has three big effects.
1. The required amount of tape is reduced. In this picture it is about 1/4.
2. You can make the line by one person. It usually takes two or more persons to complete a line with normal long tapes.
3. Maintenance is super easy. Only stained parts can be replaced.I came up with only 1, but 2 and 3 are the reasons for greatness. I had believed that the line on the factory floor should be continuous straight line. I was rather inflexible.
I am still learning much from factories. The site of manufacturing in Japan is truly amazing!
Parts Seiko Co., Ltd. Website http://www.parts-seiko.com/
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2018.08.20
The new management approach based on Kaizen by all 3 Kaizen so far and Kaizen from now are greatly different. I begin to analyze it.
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Kaizen so far can be said that it has been implemented mainly by the manufacturing department for quality, cost, and delivery time (Q, C, D). And it has created competitiveness of manufacturing of Japan. But it was the Kaizen in the market-in era when customer needs were known. The quality theme then was claim reduction, the cost theme was the prerequisite in competition, the delivery theme was the production plan management so as not to cut off the supply. It was not facing the customer’s individual needs. The other departments like design or sales also did Kaizen but they could not be said to be enough cooperation to create synergies between departments.
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Question: I said that the Kaizen which each department was doing was not connected … What do you think?
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2018.07.30
The new management approach based on Kaizen by all 2 From this essay I will write “New management approach based on Kaizen by all” and “Consultant’s improvement diary” every other week.
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Compared with the US and Europe, Japan is said that strategies of the manufacturing companies are weak, but I don’t think it is it true. In Japan there are a lot of examples of strategy building starting from Kaizen which is typical tactical activity. Toyota Production System is the example. Japanese manufacturing companies are not weak in strategy but it is a reverse approach that can not be implemented by the manufacturing companies in the US and Europe. I would like to make the best use of the original strengths of Japanese manufacturing to make them strong again.
*************************************Question: Kaizen is very tactical and keep doing Kaizen leads you to great strategy in Japan. What do you think?