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"Don't be afraid to give up the good for the great." - John D. Rockefeller An essential element in Lean thinking is Kaizen.  Kaizen is the Japanese word for continuous improvement or change for the better.  As no process can ever be declared perfect, there is always room for improvement.  Kaizen involves building on gains by continuing experimentation and innovation. The cycle of kaizen activity can be defined as: Standardize process Measure the standardized process Analyze measurements against requirements Innovate to meet requirements and increase productivity Standardize the new, improved process Continue cycle infinitely Kaizen involves every employee - from upper management to operators. Everyone is encouraged to come up with small improvement suggestions on a regular basis. This is not a once a month or once a year activity. It is continuous. Kaizen is based on making little changes on a regular basis: always improving productivity, safety and effectiveness while reducing waste.  The western philosophy is often summarized as, "if it ain't broke, don't fix it." However, the Kaizen philosophy is to "do it better, make it better, improve it even if it isn't broken, because if we don't, we can't compete with those who do."

"Don't be afraid to give up the good for the great." - John D. Rockefeller

The most effective strategy is to build an organizational culture into one that promotes continual improvement. A continual improvement culture is one that is constantly changing to improve (grounded in long term principles: respect for people, experiment, iterate quickly, etc.).

In the spirit of doing better, the smallest ideas are likely to be the easiest to adopt and implement. These improvements are sometimes called Point or Mini Kaizen. Making one small change is both rewarding to the person making the change and if communicated to others can lead to a widespread adoption of the improvement and the possibility that someone will improve on what has already been improved. There's no telling what might occur if this were the everyday habit of all team members.

Perhaps we can use something like this in our Program Mgt Task Force

Great suggestion...

The heart of most effective continuous improvement is experimentation. Experimentation is the mother of all learning methods. It drives learning throughout an organization based on what is real, not based on theory or opinion. Whether you use PDCA, DMAIC, 8D, A3s or any other method in the alphabet soup of continuous improvement, there is a backbone of experimentation whose spirit you can follow, or fail to.

In any field, there are a handful of common mistakes. Continuous improvement is no different. Some of these errors come as a result of ignorance about the proper way of doing things. Some are the result of habit. And a handful come as a function of taking the path of least resistance.

Challenging list... Well worth the read!

Tips for Continuous Improvement

So…participate! If you set up a system to surface, capture, and apply small and rapid continuous improvement ideas, then use it. Be a role model…a visible role model. This is not to show off. If you want small ideas from others, then find small ideas, submit them, and execute them. Let everyone see you using it.

A key component of continuous improvement is to show progress. It's not about miracles or heroic solutions or solving massive problems overnight. It's about building momentum. It's showing your employees that you're headed in the right direction. It's making visible changes, even slight ones, that show you're doing something. You're demonstrating that you support them. You're giving them a reason to trust you. You're building faith.

Does kaizen require volunteerism to reach the highest level of success? Or does it require management mandated 100% participation? What if you are just starting an effort to have people in your organization formally improve their work? Do you recruit volunteers, or mandate improvement by each and every person? Does this evolve into an act of coercion, where people are not fully engaged with the act of continuous improvement - but only doing so to keep the boss off their backs?

One piece flow for Continuous Improvement - How often are we improving?

Constantly!

What do you get when you combine free and Lean?  Well, the FreeLeanSite.com. Jay Watson is the Lean thinker behind this site. It grew from a passion of implementing Lean on the shop floor at companies like Motorola, Honeywell, and General Electric. He started the site to make "lean thinking" concepts of continuous improvement highly accessible for practitioners in North America. Our primary focus is on accelerating the developmental process, sustaining the effort, and most importantly - driving for results. The majority of the training modules are absolutely free to download and modify as needed. A management improvement process focused on elements of Safety, Quality, and Speed of Execution provides a framework for action. The site has four major sections to aid in finding the right resource: Jay also provides some advice on implementing Lean by defining a Lean Roadmap.The roadmap consists of the following three phases: PHASE 1 (GET READY): PLANNING FOR IMPROVEMENT PHASE II (GET SET): CONDUCTING A PILOT PROGRAM PHASE III (GO!): TEAM PROBLEM SOLVING/ SKILLS DEVELOPMENT I have been truly amazed by the sheer amount of Lean related material that Jay has compiled.  This is a great resource for learning on your own or sharing with your team.

There are three key metrics to track our progress when striving for the ideal of continuous improvement.

A simple improvement to make their work a bit easier!

The implementation of a certain tool may bring about on-time and on-budget performance, but the tool must also be used efficiently once it has been implemented. It is all very well to have nice tools; however, it is the behavior of leaders and employees that will determine the final results. An insight from the Shingo Model™ explains it beautifully: "Only via ideal behavior we can achieve ideal results." If we want to have a 100% safe environment, we want to see the staff talk to each other if they see unsafe behavior. Do you want to achieve a culture of continuous improvement? If you do, you should look for new items to constantly place on the improvement board, and you should see tips and tricks shared spontaneously. As leaders, we want to set a good example; and if a leader sees inefficient behavior among his/her employees, he/she must speak to them about this in the correct manner. But how do we get the ideal behavior that we want to see in our organization?

His approach to expose problems and to help workers visualize the problems was simple:

Limit work in progress
Limit the number of workers
By doing both (1) and (2), Ohno believed that it will place workers in challenging situations that will force them to improve their processes and thereby creating a culture of continuous improvement.

Ships aren't built so they can sit there in a harbor. Ships are built for sailing and adventures in the sea. There may be risks, but hey, that's what the ship was made to do. Much like a person can be safe and comfortable with status quo, but that's not the point of improvement. The point of continuous improvement is to explore and challenge our understanding, not to mindlessly accept what we have always done.

Lean goes beyond the tools to challenge our way of thinking. It is about learning to see opportunities and continually improving them. Lean is a system of tools and people that work together.

Wow!  Studying history, everyone is a "process engineer", celebrating improvements, discussing problems, reviewing results This is something to aspire to and emulate.  What could we start with?

This company simply amazes me! I'm going to start with our P&D Innovation team, what about showing these at our next Ops Check-in?

Possibly, I will select one, and put it at the end of the meeting. This is one of the things that I was thinking about for our Tribe of Tweddle Employees Pursuing Excellence. I have to come up with a better name.

While many organizations have generated big returns from process improvement, few have built continuous improvement into their DNA. After a few years, senior executives get distracted by other demands, or new leaders focus on other ways to improve performance. They're like the person who makes a New Year's resolution to go to the gym or try a new diet, rather than fundamentally changing his eating and exercise habits.