“Kaizen” is a compound Japanese word.  “Kai” means little, ongoing, and good, and “Zen” means for the better.  Kaizen grows out of the famous Toyota Production System where the focus in on engaging employees in ongoing, small, continuous improvements.

Kaizen events are designed to be short term (3 to 5 days), highly engaging (eight to ten employees devoted full time to the process for the 3 to 5 days) events that focus on improving one to a few targeted areas.  Kaizen is an example of change at the micro level; as opposed to large scale change efforts such as Six-Sigma or Process Re-engineering efforts.

Kaizen events focus on eliminating waste and thereby dramatically improving processes, productivity, and effectiveness.  The “eleven wastes” identified by Dr.  W. Edwards Deming and his associates can all be included in Kaizen events.  These eleven wastes include:

1. Complexity
2. Errors in documents
3. Transport of documents
4. Underutilized staff & overstaffing
5. Process of getting approvals — unnecessary reviews and signatures
6. Lack of standardized processes
7. Backlog in work queues
8. Unnecessary motions
9. Unnecessary amount of supplies
10. Waste of staff time – waiting for instruction, material, data, information, unnecessary meetings, unnecessary travel
11. Unnecessary reporting and reports

A Kaizen event usually includes a Value Stream Mapping (VSM) exercise.  VSM is a process that highlights potential areas for improvement.  The Value Stream Mapping (VSM) Session will consist of describing each step in a process from Customer Demand to Supplier Delivery.  A weighted priority matrix is developed to rate each potential area on ease of implementation and potential impact to the business.  The process concludes with a prioritized list of areas for potential Kaizen Projects.

The schedule for a typical five day Kaizen event and the activities that precede it and follow it is as follows:

Process Improvement Tools

Tools that can be covered during the initial training and during the week (as they are needed) can include:

• Lean enterprise principles
• Value stream mapping
• Six step problem solving process
• S-T-P Problem solving  (Situation – Target – Proposal)
• Root cause analysis
• Brainstorming
• Cause and effect diagrams
• Five S housekeeping:  sort, straighten, shine, standardize, sustain
• Ask “Why” five times
• Kanban cards/systems to control inventory and supplies
• Check sheets to collect data
• Pareto charts to prioritize data
• PACE charts to prioritize actions  (Priority – Action – Consider – Eliminate)

Typical Results

An organization that engages in a Kaizen event can expect to see rapid and dramatic improvements in the targeted work processes.  Typical results of Kaizen events include*:

• Faster turnaround
• Improved quality
• Improved productivity
• Reduced costs (due to the elimination of waste)
• Employee engagement
• Enhanced job satisfaction

Many businesses see dramatic results after Kaizen events.  For example*, one healthcare organization reduced delays in care from 35% to 15% of their patients, resulting in increased customer loyalty.  A manufacturing company reduced the turnaround time to process its sales orders from 7.5 days to just under 2 days, greatly increasing cash flow and customer satisfaction.

*The Kaizen Event Planner by Karen Martin and Mike Osterling

Peter Scontrino

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