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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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2018.08.08
Yukio Kakiuchi’s Kaizen diary 2 a question from a reader, “Keep moving that much is a hard job. How do you achieve it? Do you have any secret?”
Actually … I have it. I am a heavy and maniac health geek and I am doing quite a lot of things. I would like to introduce some of them.
First, from “Sleep geek”.
I spend the most of my consulting time on shop-floor, where I must speak aloud to communicate. Therefore, I am very afraid of catching cold and sore throat. And as I also spend much time using a lap-top, my eyes are tired before I go to bed.
So, I wear masks all night long not only in winter but also in summer. One is for my throat and the other is for my eyes. The material for both masks warm me and keep moist by far-infrared. The picture below is an image(haha).