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2017.11.28
Chatting at work is important 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.
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2017.11.15
Chatting at work is important 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.
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2017.11.09
Let’s hold Kaizen presentation No.5! Last time, using the case of Nissan Motors, I mentioned that the power of change is within the company. And I was convinced that it was absolutely true at the small group activity presentation meeting at Company T which I visited last week.
Company T holds a company-wide Kaizen presentation once a year. This time there were 2 presentation from each of 5 domestic plant and a presentation from each of 2 overseas plant, totaling 12 presentations. For more than 5 years I have participated this meeting as a judge and commentator, and I am sure that the level of the presentation is rising year by year.
Previously, the most of the Kaizen theme were improvement of production operation and only the domestic plants attended. But this time, not only the production but also the related staff departments such as engineering, sales, production control and quality control participated and also oveseas plants participated
It is new that depending on the theme, manufacturing, engineering and management formed a small group, and some of the teams have created a synergistic effect.
And in the past, the most of the achievements of the activities were reducing defects by each product, productivity improvement of the team, but now they are spreading to inventory and lead time reduction, progressing to improve the structure of the whole company.
Actually, a few years ago Company T faced a crisis of bankruptcy shortly after sales declined sharply to less than half. Many colleagues left the company and many people thought that Company T might give up the small group activity. However, this small group activity and presentation meeting was continued.
However, by helping each other in the company, Company T survived and started getting profit significantly. In the closing speech, the president emphasized the Kaizen by all employees helped the company survival and expressed expectations for further improvement.
I thought it was really good that Company T did not stop the small group activity. And again the answer is inside the company! I was convinced that.
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2017.11.06
Let’s hold Kaizen presentation No.4! Recently unexpected things are happening normally. In such unpredictable days, what can we do?
“The most important thing is to obtain enough skill and ability to cope with whatever may happen. Specifically, the countermeasure is to create a condition that all the members of the company carry out Kaizen every month by oneself”.
One of the actual methods is that all the members continue Kaizen activity. Regarding this I have much conviction.
25 years ago, I had been working for Nissan Motor for 18 years. I had a chance to keep watching Nissan change drastically in real time, because I have supported Kaizen activity of Nissan as a business consultant after resignation.
Everybody knows that Mr. Ghosn came to Nissan Motor as the president while the performance of Nissan was not so good. He implemented Revival plan, and accomplished the plan in a quite short period. Since Nissan’s performance has been low, it is surely Mr. Ghosn’s ability to achieve V-shaped recovery at that time.
However, the people who carried out Kaizen with Mr. Ghosn were Nissan employees, and it is true that many parts of the big change had been prepared by these employees till then. In other words, in fact, the big power drawn with the prominent leadership of Mr. Ghosn had existed in the company.
For the conclusion, enough Kaizen power for a big change exists in the company, but most of them are usually hidden. And I want you to discover the power through Kaizen presentation.