Goodwill of SE Michigan \u00a0orchestrated 16 process improvement events across the warehouses in their district. The continuous improvement ideas that were implemented saved $2.8 million in labour and supplies.<\/p>\n
When I first read about Goodwill\u2019s \u2018process improvement events\u2019 I immediately thought \u2018they used Kaizen events!\u2019<\/i><\/p>\n
Kaizen is about getting better.<\/b><\/p>\n
Generally speaking, \u2018Kaizen\u2019 is a Japanese business philosophy of continuous improvement practices and personal efficiency.<\/p>\n
A Kaizen event takes place over 3-5 days. During that time, a \u00a0cross-functional team comes together for 3-5 days to focus on a specific, clearly-defined problem.<\/p>\n
1) Kaizen teams are cross-functional<\/em>.<\/b><\/p>\n A lot of the time, problems that warrant a Kaizen event have been hanging around for a long time. They\u2019re complex issues; they can\u2019t simply be solved by one or two people putting their heads together. Rather, they need people from all sorts of departments. Solving them requires input from the different sides of the business in order to properly understand the issue and move forward.<\/p>\n 2) Kaizen events are focussed<\/em>.<\/b><\/p>\n Much of the work critical to the success of a Kaizen event takes place before the team even shows up. It\u2019s crucial to scope out the problem ahead of time and put a box around it. When boundaries are clearly defined, you can say \u201cokay, we are only working on this specific issue. We\u2019re going to focus\u201d. A facilitator ensures everyone stays on task to focus on the clearly-defined problem at hand.<\/p>\n 3) Kaizen events are 3-5 days long<\/em>.<\/b><\/p>\n When you\u2019re tackling long-standing, entrenched problem, there are undoubtedly long-standing, entrenched conflicts or ideas around the particular problem being solved. \u00a0When participants are focussing on the issue for as long as 5 days, they\u2019re forced to move past their pre-conceived ideas. Simply put, they have to; otherwise they\u2019re going to sit there and do nothing. And that\u2019s painful.<\/p>\n 4) Kaizen events require top management buy-in<\/em>.<\/b><\/p>\n Successful Kaizen events are backed by a top-management attitude that says “you can do this. You can figure this out. We know it\u2019s a tough problem, but get over it and figure it out.\u201d<\/p>\n Kaizen events require considerable investment; the tools, dedication of time, and a Kaizen facilitator. With all that in mind, you can see why it\u2019s crucial to have top management\u2019s buy-in. Great things happen when the top bosses won\u2019t take \u2019Sorry, we can\u2019t fix it\u2019 for answer.<\/p>\n Have you ever been involved with a Kaizen event?<\/p>\n What worked well about it?<\/p>\n What was tough?<\/p>\n Let me know in the comments!<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" When an organization embraces continuous improvement, amazing things happen. Goodwill of SE Michigan \u00a0orchestrated 16 process improvement events across the warehouses in their district. The continuous improvement ideas that were implemented saved $2.8 million in labour and supplies. When I first read about Goodwill\u2019s \u2018process improvement events\u2019 I immediately thought \u2018they used Kaizen events!\u2019 Kaizen […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[119,224,214],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1213","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-continuous-improvement","category-kaizen","category-leadership"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/onwardbusinessmechanics.com\/staging\/4922\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1213","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/onwardbusinessmechanics.com\/staging\/4922\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/onwardbusinessmechanics.com\/staging\/4922\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/onwardbusinessmechanics.com\/staging\/4922\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/onwardbusinessmechanics.com\/staging\/4922\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1213"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/onwardbusinessmechanics.com\/staging\/4922\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1213\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/onwardbusinessmechanics.com\/staging\/4922\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1213"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/onwardbusinessmechanics.com\/staging\/4922\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1213"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/onwardbusinessmechanics.com\/staging\/4922\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1213"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}