Let me continue the stories of Kaizen that a part time worker carried out. There are many impressive Kaizen stories done by part time workers in my mind.
I show you a case of the company Y, a famous measurement instrument maker. Company Y asked me help to stop a big trouble of delivery delay because of the bad production flow in the plant.
There were many assembly processes with many skilled operators and the total processes were divided into five or six small processes. And there were specialized workers for each process.
The production lot size was 50 and 50 units were not handed out until all of them completed by each process, it makes so long time for finishing all the final products. Company Y often faced a big delay on delivery.
When I was discussing with the plant manager on the shop floor, I was aware of a part time worker watching me and I thought she wanted to say something. So, I asked a question to the part time operator Ms. B, “Do you have any good idea?”
Ms. B answered, “I’m sorry, maybe the plant manager gets angry, but when the production is very behind the schedule, I do all jobs by myself piece by piece. In fact, this is much faster but as I do it without permission, I seldom do it.”
“Thank you very much Ms. B. It is excellent! “, I said to Ms. B and asked “Could you do it just now in front of us? I am sorry to ask you suddenly.”
Then Ms. B took out a secret wooden work stand from under the desk and gathered necessary parts and started to assemble products.
What happened? A production time for one piece was only 20 minutes. The plant manager said it took at least a week to finish the products (although the lot size was 50).
The plant manager was surprised to see the production speed and then and there he started the Kaizen to change all the production way from dividing process to assemble by one worker as Ms. B did.
The delivery delay problem was solved in a short time. Ms. B was worried to be scolded, but needless to say, she was praised very much.
This is often the case, that the real solution is staying on shop-floor.
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2020.02.28
[68] The new management approach based on Kaizen by all Let’s wash our hands much more frequently to prevent atypical pneumonia!
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Lead time reduction cannot be achieved by the president alone. Experts alone cannot do it either. This is a theme that really requires the participation of all the employers and all the employees. In a normal company organization, each person can only do his or her job. It is not easy to discuss improvement between different departments, even if they are related to each other. However, on the other hand, people from various departments gather on Genba and discuss their relations and problems about the products, synergistic and surprisingly large effect will be delivered, and in the process you can get high motivation.
The president gather the Kaizen that have been implemented separately by each department and determine themes of overall optimization. Then the small Kaizen by each people gets together and they become big and start supporting the company’s strategy.
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Question : Have you had an experience of this type Kaizen?
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2019.10.28
The new management approach based on Kaizen by all 15 I would like to express my sincere condolences to those affected by heavy rain.
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Top management must know the real site all ways. It is important not only to look around the site, but also to communicate with the people who work at the site. For example, Mr. Toshio Doko, the former president of Toshiba left the following words:
“The organization chart of the company is made the president at the top, followed by general managers, and section managers, but I don’t think that style good. On the job, both the president and employees are standing at the equal level. The main point of the meeting is to do it casually. You can hold a meeting while standing. Communicate with your subordinate when you see his ore her face. ”
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Question: Do you really communicate casually?
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2019.08.30
The new management approach based on Kaizen by all 14 The terrible hot summer seems to be going away little by little. I am happy about it.
If designers talk about their job, you take it as a matter of design. But if operators talk about their job, it is not only their job but also about everything of the company. There are tremendous volume of information on shop floor. It is good to do free discussion with the people from many department with the operators and you can go beyond the walls that exist between the departments.
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Question: Are you talking with the operators in your company?
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2019.08.05
The new management approach based on Kaizen by all 13 It’s hot these days and time of heatstroke has come. Water supply is important!
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For example, all the workers know real things by experience. However, it is important whether those people can open their minds and talk about these experiences. Therefore, the various information that come out of KZ method or Choco-Ann are valuable. And It becomes possible for the president, the departments of design, purchase, sales, technology etc. to accept the experience of them on-site.
The part-time operators may be nervous and may not speak well if called in the president’s office. However, if the president goes to their job site and asks questions about his or her work and Kaizen improvements, the conversation boils. It may be possible only in such a way that the people of wide range roles such as the president, managers in other departments, leaders, full-time and part-time workers gather in one place and talk about one thing.
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Question: Are you talking with wide range of people in your company?
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2019.07.09
The new management approach based on Kaizen by all 12 It’s hot these days and time of heatstroke has come. Water supply is important!
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For that purpose, it is good for everyone to have a habit of implementing Kaizen continuously. Therefore all the employees are required to implement at least one Kaizen a month. The required level of Kaizen is very low. You can copy the Kaizen of your coworkers or just repairing your tool is also Kaizen. Choko-Ann’s rule is very loose and no need to have financial result and you are always praised.
All the people join the Choko-Ann activity and the president find the fact that all the people of the company have the ability to do Kaizen and start improving the management together.****************************************
Question: Can you imagine the Kaizen that copying and repairing is OK?
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2019.05.28
The new management approach based on Kaizen by all 11 The long holidays are over and Let’s work hard again!
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The Choco-Ann method is a way to bring out the improvement ability of the employees and execute the improvement idea in the company. There are many ideas in the company, but they are worthless unless they are implemented. It is required to improve the various problems found through the implementation of the KZ method. And it is necessary for everyone in the company to realize as many ideas as possible in a short time. When it comes to how to achieve that, most things come true if you can think of a way to do it rather than looking for reasons you can not do it.
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Question: How is the improvement implemented in your company?
