How to Implement Kaizen Culture in an Organisation

In this article I will explain a detailed procedure on How to implement Kaizen in an organisation. If you don’t read the article on what is Kaizen, I recommend you to read that article. So, you can understand this article more clearly.

What will happen if we Implement Kaizen culture in an organisation properly?

Improvements will come to your organisation like water in a continuously flowing river. I don’t have any other suitable answer to this question.

How to Implement Kaizen Culture in an Organisation?

You can implement kaizen culture in an organisation by following these steps;

Step 1

First thing we need to do is to make aware of everyone about the kaizen. This should include the topics what is kaizen, how to generate kaizen, what are the benefits of kaizen and why should we implement the kaizen. Answer to this question will get from my article on what is kaizen, except how to generate kaizen.

How to generate kaizen

Kaizen generates through a thinking process. First of all the person should have an interest in generating a kaizen, which is the most important thing. This importance can be induced in him through training. Next step he should identify a problem. For this one should know wastes in lean manufacturing. Please read this article for knowing about 8 wastes in lean manufacturing. Once he identify a problem, next step is to find the root cause of a problem. For that please read the article on why why analysis. Next, think about the ways in which that root cause can be eliminated. Definitely there will be a lot of solutions coming in to mind. Of that solution select a solution which have characteristics that match to of kaizen. Now a kaizen is generated in his mind and this need to be written in a paper for further review and implementation. Kaizens can also be generated for improving the safety. In generating kaizen one should be creative for generating a real kaizen.

This step to be repeated over an interval. Otherwise interest of employees will become low.

Step 2

Prepare a procedure for kaizen drive. I will explain the basic structure of a kaizen drive.

1. An employee generates kaizen.
2. He discuss with his immediate supervisor and gets his advise if any.
3. Employee writes the kaizen in a paper and got approval from supervisor for going ahead.
4. If the kaizen is implementable, the employee implements the kaizen and if its not implementable supervisor can rejects the kaizen.
5. If the employee is not able to implement the kaizen by himself he can seek the help of other department for implement the kaizen.
6. If the supervisor is not able to make decision on a kaizen, he can forward this kaizen to higher level kaizen team for making decision. Higher level kaizen team consists of representatives from all departments who is responsible for making decisions.
7. Higher level kaizen team can reject or accept the kaizen, and can initiate the implementation of the kaizen.
8. Its good to give a appreciation to whom who have generated the kaizen. This will encourage him to give more kaizen in future.
9. Calculate the savings of a kaizen after implementation and record it.
10. Its good to display the story of kaizen, which includes short description of kaizen, its savings, benefits, scope of horizontal deployment, etc in a notice board so that other employees can see the kaizen and they also gets encouraged.
11. Appreciation can be given in a meeting which consists of top management.

Once the procedure is prepared we can move to next step. Also get prepared for implementing the prepared procedure.

Step 3

Launch the kaizen drive through a function consists of top management and all employees. Don’t forget to serve some snacks and tea.😉 Also conduct small shop floor meetings so that employees can interact themselves and clear doubts. Also give a initial thrust to the kaizen drive, by helping them generate kaizen and implementation. And finally implement the prepared procedure.

Step 4

Sustain all things done for kaizen drive. Top management involvement in the shop floor regarding kaizen will helps to sustain the kaizen drive. The drive should come from top management.

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