I have written that chatting with common theme on shop-floor is important.
 

This time I want to tell you the image of this activity.
 

This is the logo picture of my company and it tells the feeling.
 


 

A young leader Kaizen-kun is standing in front of the group and the other people of the company are supporting him. The person on the right is the president, on the left is me.
 

Please do Kaizen like this. It must be enjoyable, and you will get a super result.
 

I wish you a happy new year!
 

I said that chatting with common theme is important. We have various types of chatting other than the chatting on shop-floor in front of the products. I think “brain storming” is one of the chatting technique.
 

The rule is very simple. There are only two rules. One is to get as many ideas as possible about the target theme. To be correct or to be logical are not necessary. I always ask you to get 100 ideas at least. And the other one is not to deny the ideas however strange they are.
 

Although I ask you to get 100 ideas, it is often the case you stop getting ideas before 30. Thirty ideas show only ordinary ideas which you are feeling daily. If you need to reach a new level idea, you have to try to get 100 by using your brain fully.
 

Previously I did a brain storming work-shop with the sales managers and the maintenance managers of a car dealer, the theme of which was “More visitors to the dealer”
 

They tried to get many ideas but stopped after 30 ideas. I tried to pull ideas from them but they couldn’t.
 

But after a while one of them raise an idea “Give candies to visitors”. I wrote down on the white board. Then the next manager “Give chocolate to visitors”. Then “Rice cookies” continued…
 

I thought this is not a correct way but denying is against the brainstorming rule, I kept writing these new ideas on the white board.
 

These snack ideas were finished after the managers made 30 of those. I thought they may stop again. But miracle happened. Managers’ brains were really stormed, and they got 100 ideas finally.
 

At the next step, they started discussion who eats candies? who eats chocolates? who eats rice cookies? By discussing the difference, they found there are a lot more visitor groups than they assumed, as “a couple visitor with kids”, “a couple visitor with their parents” etc.
 

Finally, they got many new ideas like making kid play space which was very unique then and after implementing these ideas, visitors to the dealer increased and their sales rose and reached the target.
 

Chatting between various people with common target really works.
 

 

I write down your ideas on board.
Tell me many ones.
Give Sachertorte. Sache….
Give Osenbei. Ose….
Give Croissant.
You are giving difficult snacks
intentionally don’t you?

I think Genba Kaizen has two types. ( Genba : on site)
 
One is the Genba Kaizen to solve the problem which has already occurred. The other is the Genba Kaizen which realizes advanced level for the future management.
 
Of course both of them are important and good.
 
But we have to know the difference between the two. I found the most of the Genba Kaizen being done on site is the former one solving the occurred problem. This is the Kaizen which keeps the current level and not enough to keep up with the changing world. We need to know there is the other step Kaizen for the future.
 
What are the Kaizen for the future for example?
 
In Japan, the birthrate is decreasing, and the average age is going up. This clearly means we run short of workers. Therefore, we have to improve the labor productivity at least by 30%.
 
And in every aspect the speed is becoming faster and faster as Amazon deliver books within the day of order. What is needed in this era is shortening lead-time by 50%.
 
If we try to do these big Kaizen, it is almost impossible to do all by the people on site. We need to do the Kaizen by all the people in the company by chatting on Genba or on site.
 
Somebody may say, “Can you be responsible if we fail?”, “It is too difficult and impossible for us!”. But to find the impossible reasons brings us nothing. In order to survive in this changing world, we need to go to the advanced stage.
 

If you decide to challenge, you need to be ready to feel big pain.
 
But please don’t worry, the pain is not from unknown disease. It is the muscular pain after training.
 
If you are challenging to win the Olympic games, the training level is very high and you feel big pain but you can also gain big reward.
 

In the comics of the episode 18, there was a pleasant chatting. But I do not think that kind of chatting leads good Kaizen, either.
 
Then how is the chatting which helps good Kaizen? There are some important points.
 
First, the objects of Kaizen should be visible. Therefore, most of the time I stay in the place where real Kaizen is done because everything there is visible.
 
Second, the theme of Kaizen is shared by all the people there. When I am there I always point the object and the theme is shared.
 
And there should be various many people as it is a Kaizen assembly. There are the president, directors, managers, staff people, part-timers, sales people, designers, operators etc. These days I often hear the word “diversity” and I think this is it.
 
Every product in a plant has a lot of relations to all the people there. Sales people took the order of it, purchase people bought the material, engineers made the machine layout, controllers made the production plan, production people made it, inspectors checked it and drivers transported it. They are separated from each other but are related to each other.
 
If these people get together in front of a product and start chatting for example about shortening the lead-time, often the case super ideas comes out that can never be created by one self.
 
This is the chat I want to do.
 
When we do this chat and get good ideas, many attendants get very surprised and say, “this is an unique good assembly”. Yes, this kind of assembly is not done usually. In case of a big problem happening, this kind of assembly may be made but what I want is the assembly done in daily life in order to be good.
 
Let’s start chatting with many company people to do Kaizen!
 

I visit each client’s plant nationwide in Japan almost every day to support their Kaizen. And there I spend about the half of the time in company on the work site, in Genba.
 
What am I doing there? The half of the time is spent seeing the site, discovering the problem and implementing improvement on the site together with the people there including the president. And the other half of the time is spent at the sites where the improvement was actually carried out by the workers to have conversations such as listening to various stories and expressing opinions while watching the improvement with the person who actually did the Kaizen. It is “chatting” based on a clear theme.
 
What I want to listen from them is the difficulties which they faced while they did the Kaizen. It tend to be a success talk when they talk to the consultant where there is the president. But I can tell that the improvement was not easily obtained.
 
Then I start talking at him or her.
 
Kakiuchi: This improvement is amazing, is not it? But there was a lot of difficult time, right?
Mr. A: I did not do it only by myself. Mr. B also helped me.
Kakiuchi: Really! Let’s call Mr. B here.
(Mr. B, being called.)
Kakiuchi: Mr. B, thank you for helping Mr. A. This is incredible. Please tell me the difficulties you faced.
Mr. B: Actually, I did not have the tool to make this fixture, so I borrowed it by another department.
President: Oh, no! Please buy the necessary tools immediately. You should not hesitate to ask for such important things.
 
The conversation proceeded like this. And the problems in various invisible places are coming out and heading for further solution. If you say “chat”, there is something unscrupulous and there are also people who feel the atmosphere like “Do not chat while you work”, but in fact it is a valuable tool in improving.
 

I visit each client’s plant nationwide in Japan almost every day to support their Kaizen. And there I spend about the half of the time in company on the work site, in Genba.
 
What am I doing there? The half of the time is spent seeing the site, discovering the problem and implementing improvement on the site together with the people there including the president. And the other half of the time is spent at the sites where the improvement was actually carried out by the workers to have conversations such as listening to various stories and expressing opinions while watching the improvement with the person who actually did the Kaizen. It is “chatting” based on a clear theme.
 
What I want to listen from them is the difficulties which they faced while they did the Kaizen. It tend to be a success talk when they talk to the consultant where there is the president. But I can tell that the improvement was not easily obtained.
 
Then I start talking at him or her.
 
Kakiuchi: This improvement is amazing, is not it? But there was a lot of difficult time, right?
Mr. A: I did not do it only by myself. Mr. B also helped me.
Kakiuchi: Really! Let’s call Mr. B here.
(Mr. B, being called.)
Kakiuchi: Mr. B, thank you for helping Mr. A. This is incredible. Please tell me the difficulties you faced.
Mr. B: Actually, I did not have the tool to make this fixture, so I borrowed it by another department.
President: Oh, no! Please buy the necessary tools immediately. You should not hesitate to ask for such important things.
 
The conversation proceeded like this. And the problems in various invisible places are coming out and heading for further solution. If you say “chat”, there is something unscrupulous and there are also people who feel the atmosphere like “Do not chat while you work”, but in fact it is a valuable tool in improving.