Kaikaku - 2nd commandment
From: Norman Bodek
Kaizen is continuous improvement by empowering all employees in creative problem solving
actitivies. It is small and incremental improvements. It is people involved in solving
problems in their work area. These improvements normally do not cost much money. Kaizen
can be done individually in what I call Quick and Easy Kaizen whereby the average employee
submits in writing two improvement ideas per month that focuses on making their work
easier and more interesting resulting in cost savings, safety and quality improvement,
better throughput or pleasing their customers. (The average in Japan is two ideas per
month per worker.) At Technicolor in Detroit with 1800 employees they went in 2001 from
250 suggestions with 113 implemented to over 17,000 suggestions with over 9,500
implemented in the last twelve months. In addition to individual activities, Kaizen
activities are often conducted in teams such as quality control circles or self directed
work teams. A simple but very powerful process is for groups of people to read books and
ask each other, "How can we apply the information in the book in our company. Most
people who do read management books on their own do very little with the new information,
maybe afraid to make a mistake but put them into study teams and fantastic things can
happen. Try it with my new book Kaikaku The Power and Magic of Lean. Kaizen is primarily
small ideas but lots and lots of them. The trick is to do Kaizen every single day. Often
we do Kaizen and then we stop and rest on our laurels. It is the analogy of the tortoise
and the hare - Japan was light years behind America after World War II but they developed
a methodology of continuous improvement, never stopping in their approach to eliminate
quality defects and the other non-value adding wastes, while American companies, so far
ahead of the Japanese fell asleep, like the rabbit, lost out on both quality and
productivity improvement. We did make giant leaps in technology but did not make the small
incremental improvements involving all employees. People should every day relentlessly
reduce waste - it is challenging but it makes work fun.
Kaikaku is larger projects. Kaikaku means radical change, reform and also means
innovation, normally beyond the scope of the average worker. Kaikaku is rethinking the
very purpose of what you do. You could improve daily the process of making red wickets but
maybe you should stop and make blue ones or get into an entirely different business. Many
of you are doing Kaizen Blitz's or Value Stream Mapping changing the process and that is
Kaikaku. But, Kaikaku is much greater.
I personally do not condemn sending work to India and China to save money. I do condemn
doing it without creating more and better jobs for American workers just for short term
profits. China and India are emerging markets and we should go there to build and sell
them our products. But just to take advantage of the "cheap' labor and
"hang" the American worker to "die" is not right. Just ask, "why
is it that Toyota, Honda and Hyundai are able to come to America to open new plants while
we close our plants to send the work to China?" And also ask, "how has Toyota
been able to grow to the second largest automobile company in the world with profits
larger than Toyota, Ford and Chrysler combined without having to lay off a single
worker?"
We have much to do and focusing on Kaizen and Kaikaku will prove very helpful for you but
as Dr. Shingo used to always say, "Do it!"
I do hope you will read and study in groups my two books: The Idea Generator Quick and
Easy Kaizen and Kaikaku The Power and Magic of Lean. When you do Quick and Easy Kaizen and
see how easy it really is, you will stop and say, "Why haven't we done this
before?"
The first commandment was: "Throw out the traditional concept of manufacturing
methods."
When we open a new plant the layout conforms to the product being built and our current
manufacturing practices. We do make slight changes as time progresses but
rarely do we make radical changes unless forced to by competition or radical changes in
technology, or something like Kaizen Blitz comes along. Mr. Hirano challenges us to
continually think about ways to make radical changes before our competition does.
The second commandment is:
"Think of how the new method will work; not how it won't work."
Too often people like to play the role of "Devil's advocate." Yes, you can
always find fault with a new idea, always, for nothing is perfect and things always
change. The challenge is to rise to the occasion and find the best way to do things today
and do it - as Shingo would always say, "Do it!" And as the current chairman of
Toyota, Mr. Okuda, says, "Failure to change is a vice.
I want everyone at Toyota to change and do not be an obstacle for others that want to
change."
Yes, resistance to change is our enemy. In fact, the only way that you know if you are
growing personally is that you feel this "resistance to change." Without that
feeling of resistance, you are surely not growing.