The Value of a Kaizen Event

I just watched a video on the A Better Way website about an employee at Greenscape describing how they have set up their trucks to be more efficient. It was a great lesson to me again how effective using the lean tools of 5S and kaizen really are. Check out this video to see how Greenscape made their trucks so much more efficient.

Below are a few lessons learned from a teleconference we had on understanding kaizen events:

1. How do you choose what to focus on? Choose a process where you will get the “biggest bang for your buck.” Look at your value stream and find the processes closest to affecting value for your customer.


2. Just doing a 5S can increase productivity in an area by 20%.


3. How do you justify the time a kaizen event takes? If you consider that 95% of every job is waste, it is easy to see the worth of spending the time to make a process better.


4. How do you handle resistance if someone is unwilling to make the change to do a process differently? Say, “Let’s just try it.” Then document with stopwatch. Work with people to make changes. Listen to them and test your changes. Follow up with audits.

Linda Coors