Is Lean more than Kaizen events? – The Lean project format

The Lean Quick project format

• 3 – 5 weeks duration
• 2 – 3 days per week
• Team members return to work for the remainder of the week or use the time to collect data and communicate updates to department employees
• Project phases: definition, analysis/mapping, design, implementation plan
• Education/workshop on the 1st of each week, if needed
• Inform Business/Executive Sponsor
• 2-6 month rollout rollout, monthly team follow-up meetings/conference calls

The Lean Six Sigma quick project format works on projects that take a few weeks to complete the improvement. This can be due to many reasons.

• The project scope may span multiple departments and cannot be broken down into smaller parts or the process will be sub-optimized
• The team will need to collect, analyze, and verify the quality of data before making critical decisions (performance data, sales, or time study).
• The small Lean Six Sigma team needs to receive input from company associates who are not on the team to ensure buy-in.

In these circumstances, the changes made by the Lean Six Sigma team must be well thought out. Decision making cannot be rushed!

Projects that require a duration of 3-5 weeks compared to a one-week Kaizen event include:

• Client Profitability Analysis: Politically Confidential Data and Decisions
• Product rationalization: it is important to use the correct data or very negative decisions can be made
• Optimization from order to delivery: processes that affect several departments
• HR processes: often involve legal issues
• Warehouse Layout: Lots of Work Required
• Flow Manufacturing / Kanban Materials Management – ​​where parts, supplies and components are shared by different product families and therefore different flow cells
• Supply Chain Improvements – Involve Suppliers

Kaizen event format

Day 1 – Lean Education

Day 2: Analyze the current process and begin improvements

Day 3: continue with the improvements

Day 4 – Document new standards

Day 5 – Present results and celebrate

Kaizen event method failures

• Action Not Completed Item List
• hasty decisions
• Incomplete time studies
• Data without quality control
• Bad sustaining record

Kaizen events are meant to start and finish a Lean project in a week. In many cases, however, celebrating Friday is simply creating an action item list. When the energy and focus of the Kaizen week is over, this list of action items often remains and the action items are never completed. The result is that the actual savings/improvements are much less than the calculated savings.

Due to the 1 week format and the fact that the team is working full time on this project, decisions are often rushed. Allocating 1 day to do time studies or collect other critical data is simply not enough. In 1 week, the time of some product families is studied, but not all. Data is collected, but its accuracy is not verified. There is no time to collect additional information from employees who are aware of this process, but are not on the team.

The result is often a solution that is imposed on the organization. When this happens, employees who weren’t on the team will naturally back off. The result is an unsustainable process and the actual results never equal the theoretical results.

Anyone involved in kaizen events will tell you that sustaining is the hardest part. But in the process Kaizen receives the least focus.

What are Kaizen events good at?

Kaizen events can be successful. There are two circumstances where we have had success using week-long events to improve processes.

The first is when the process being analyzed is highly focused, affects only one or two departments, and does not impact other parts of the company. We used a kaizen event at a retailer looking to eliminate redundant paperwork in the Procurement department. This mainly involved Buyers and Procurement Managers. The improvements that the Lean Team made eliminated printing and copying paper. This did not affect other departments of the company.

Another example of a focused Kaizen Event is reducing machine setup time by using quick change tooling. This improvement is centered on one machine and can be largely done, while communicating with all operators involved, within a week.

Kaizen events can also be effective for 5S visual management implementations. This involves labelling, organizing and classifying the workplace. Usually we would involve most of the people working in the area involved. Typically, this type of Lean tool can be done in a week (if the area is properly outlined ahead of time) and does not have numerous additional action items that need to be completed after the week is over.

Benefits of the Lean Quick project format

• Breaks in the project allow time to collect, quality check, and refine data
• Breaks allow time to present current state flow maps or time study results to additional employees in the department who are not on the Lean Team
• Project duration provides sufficient time to complete time studies for all product families
• The last week is spent creating a control plan (how the solution will integrate into the business) and an implementation plan.

The key to the success of the project format is the duration of the project and the breaks between meeting days. The duration allows for thorough analysis, communication of improvements, and a design that works and is well received by all employees in the department.

Breaks give Lean team members time to catch up on their regular jobs and work outside of the Lean Six Sigma Project to collect data and communicate current status to other employees in the department.

The last week of the project is dedicated to thinking about sustainability. This involves creating control plans; how the process improvement will be integrated into the business process. The team also creates an implementation plan (timeline) to show how changes will be sequenced to the business to ensure test and acceptance.

Sometimes going a little slower will achieve real results faster.