The principles of Kaizen

Reducing waste and improving manufacturing processes is a big part of proper lean manufacturing. Kaizen is a great way to improve the overall efficiency of your company and to increase your productivity and your profits. How do you implement Kaizen and how does it work? This article will explain Kaizen and help you understand more about this process and how it will improve your company.

Kaizen was developed by the Toyota Production System. It originated as a way to improve the flow of a manufacturing facility. Kaizen is extremely popular in America as many of them use it in conjunction with lean manufacturing to create better manufacturing facilities.

The term kaizen usually tied to "kaizen events." Kaizen events refer to an event that will help you solve a problem within the company. The focus comes down to implementing a safer and healthier working environment that builds an atmosphere of teamwork with everyone committed to solving business problems.

Kaizen events refer to a number of things from the way your manufacturing line is working and why it needs to change on down to the improvement in the speed of your employees production and your machinery production.One of the common kaizen methods is known as SMED or single minute exchange rate of die.When you focus on this you will be able to single down the errors within the company, fix them effectively and send out better products or services to your employees.

Kaizen events are not only focused on the manufacturing industry. A number of other industries deal with them as well like the medical industry, lending companies, and even fast-food restaurants. Since the goal is to build teamwork and focus on higher quality, it's easy to see why kaizen is so attractive to so many different industries.

To focus on the identification of kaizen events you will need to create a kaizen team. A kaizen team must consist of about 7 or less employees that will spend all of their time focusing on the problem and brainstorming solutions. Pick individuals that have intimate knowledge about the machinery, products, and the company in general if you want to find the best solutions.Most companies select a team that is filled with individuals from all different departments and will all be able to provide better input to find a good solution. If you can fix the kaizen event, you may be able to improve your lead time by up to 505 or more in your sales or manufacturing areas.

Significant improvement is the biggest reason for implementing kaizen events. You want to dramatically improve your organization so you need to turn to a kaizen team that will identify where your current waste or error ratio is at and what you want it to be at. Right now it may be at 7% so the goal of the kaizen team is to get it down to 2% or less. This is a good goal and a great challenge for your kaizen team.

Choose motivated and organized individuals for your kaizen team. They are in charge of helping the company so you only want to select the best of the best when it comes to choosing a kaizen team. The kaizen team members all need to be able to observe the issues on their own and come up with the solutions for the problems.

Once kaizen has been implemented, the team will meet again to see how well they did and if the company is improving and getting better. They will be responsible for coming up with the presentation to offer to the management team as well so you need to have secretaries and others to help them if it is necessary.