Kaizen Event Facilitation

TAG has developed a practical and interactive approach to Kaizen Events that provides clients with sustainable, long-term benefits.  Our industry proven facilitators will work closely with your staff to identify your goals and then proceed accordingly to get the desired result.  TAG will provide the expertise needed to train your team and facilitate multiple events at your facility.  Our clients have experienced significant benefits from our approach to Kaizen including:

• 30-50% Productivity Improvements
• 30-50% Reductions in Floor Space Requirements
• 50-70% Quality Improvements
• 70-80% Reductions in WIP Inventory
• 40-50% Reductions in Lead Time

Kaizen is a Japanese word that means to make peoples jobs easier by taking them apart, studying them and making improvements.  The intent is to make people more productive by improving their working processes and the focus is on immediate action rather than longer-term improvements.  Kaizen is also known as the Deliberate Application of Common Sense.

The best knowledge resides with the people who actually perform the work.  They know the problems and often the solutions.   During a Kaizen event, they make the recommendations on how to improve the process and they make the physical changes to the processes.  They will also support and continue the process after the event is over. 

Because the people who have to live with the processes on a daily basis are the people who study the current process, design the improved process, and then physically make the changes to convert to the new process, there is tremendous involvement, buy-in and ownership of the improvements.  The changes created through the Kaizen event are very sustainable.  The processes do not revert back to the less efficient way of doing things. 

One of the Key Concepts of Kaizen is that “If there is No Action there can be No Success.”  The goal is not a 100% solution that solves all the problems at one time, but rather a 60% solution that can be accomplished in a one-week time frame with the intent to hold another event in several months to further improve the processes. 

A Kaizen event is not a license to spend and should be accomplished with very little expenditure.  Overall emphasis is placed on creating solutions and improvements with existing assets.  As a result, they are a very cost-effective method to create dramatic improvements in processes.

A typical Kaizen event is one week long.  A team is usually a cross-functional team that is composed of approximately 8 people.  The team is composed of people who are in the process to be reviewed, such as the process workers, lead people, and supervisor.  Additional resources from other departments are assigned to support the event.  Personnel from Industrial Engineering, Product Engineering, Quality, Purchasing, Production Control, Finance, Customer Service, Field Service, etc., can be used to add value to the result of the event.

Training is done the first and second morning in the classroom.  In the afternoon, the tools that were taught are applied by gathering data on the floor.  Metrics for the current “as-is” process are established during the first afternoon.  A report is made each afternoon to the group and other teams to exchange ideas.  On Wednesday afternoon, the team should have a proposal put together as to what changes are proposed.  The proposal includes the new metrics, proposed process flow, process map, process flow analysis, and spaghetti diagrams.  Once the proposal is approved, the team can then start implementing the changes.  The scope of the plan is to be able to complete the changes and have the new improved process up and running by Monday.  So when the employees come in on Monday, the new processes are in place.

Typical One-Week Tag Kaizen Event Plan

Training:	Training:	Floor Work:	Floor Work:	Floor Work:
Introduction Kaizen Key Concepts Process Flow Analysis Spaghetti Diagrams	Block Exercise Takt Time & Cycle Time Pull Systems Mistake Proofing	Develop Detail Improvement Plan Set Goals	Implement Improvements	Complete Improvements Prepare Presentation to Management
Day 1	Day 2	Day 3	Day 4	Day 5
Floor Work:	Floor Work:	Floor Work:	Floor Work:	Floor Work:
Process Mapping Flow Analysis Spaghetti Diagrams Team Reports	Process Observations Takt-Cycle Time Chart Proposed Layout Team Reports	Approve Plan Start to Implement Improvements Team Reports	Implement Improvements Team Reports	Presentation to Management With Specific Measurables