Kaizen and Continuous Improvement

Kaizen, which means "continuous improvement" in Japanese, is a philosophy

that emphasizes the importance of making small, incremental changes to
processes in order to improve efficiency, reduce waste, and enhance quality.
This course will provide you with a comprehensive understanding of Kaizen
principles and methodologies, as well as practical tools and techniques for
implementing Kaizen in your organization

The course objectives are as follows:

Course Benefits / Objectives

 Gain an understanding of the Kaizen and a methodology to incorporate

changing requirements.
 Demonstrate need for Leadership involvement
 Understand continuous improvement cycle
 Understand the assessment, review and improvement process using
"Lean" waste reduction techniques
 Define leadership key roles and responsibilities during the transition
from implementation mode to sustaining and improvement of all
processes
 Provide a concept understanding of the "Lean" approach to allow
evaluating the technique as an effective tool for identifying and driving
focused improvement teamwork.
 Understand how to the 7 main sources of waste and concepts to
eliminate them

Who Should Attend

 Senior managers, direct reports, and union leaders

 Department managers and supervisors
 Key Process Owners
 Implementation Team

 Course Outline

Day 1
 Kaizen, The Concept
 Kaizen and management

 Innovation – key success for improvement

  Deming Wheel in Kaizen

 What can we improve?

 3 main principles in operations can be improved – quality,

cost, efficiency

 What is quality?

 What is operating cost?

 Core of Kaizen

 Know your customer

 Let it flow

 Go to Gemba

 Empower people

 Be transparent

 Empowering people and culture change

 Personal quality

 Empowerment and motivation concept

 Kaizen involvement – level of participations

 Psychological safety at workplace to drive engagement of

projects

 Kaizen – how to get started?

 How to start a Kaizen Blitz aka Jishuken?

 The 6-steps flow of Kaizen

 Comparing Six Sigma DMAIC flow

 Step 1: Customer thinking

 Define the customers

 Define the customers’ needs and requirements

  Deliver customer values

 Step 2: Analyzing current situations

 Muda / Wastes and Variation

 Key to identify types of wastes and variances in

workplace

 Project plan : How to eliminate and reduce wastes

and variances in your workplace?

 Identifying 7 wastes as per Lean manufacturing

 Value Analysis – identify Value-Added (VA), Least

Value-Added (LVA) and Non-Value-Added (NVA)
Activities

 Process flow and gemba audit

 Developing the Value stream mapping

 Bottleneck analysis – throughput, cycle time, lead

time, takt time

Day 2
 Step 3: Root cause analysis
 Data management
 Kaizen tools
 Fish bone analysis
 Why-Why analysis
 Pareto Chart
 Scatter Diagram
 Process flow analysis – SIPOC
 Step 4: Identifying strengths and weaknesses
 SWOT analysis
 Step 5: Deciding on solutions
 Workplace refining - standardization
 Poka Yoke and Mistake Proofing
 TPM
 Housekeeping – 5S : Quality, Safety and Productivity
 Improving technology – embracing the automation /
technology enhancement
 One Point Lesson
 Workplace Design and Motion study - Therblig analysis /
Ergonomic
 Heijunka for production leveling
 Enhancing supplier partnership / outsourcing
  Risk analysis and choosing the solution process
 Define the performance measure (KPI)
 Step 6: Implementation, Monitoring and Follow up
 Effective Problem Solving flow
 Challenges and Pitfalls : How to overcome them
effectively?

Day 3
 Introduction to Kaizen Gemba Audit:
o Overview of Kaizen philosophy and principles, and the role of
Gemba Audits in continuous improvement.
 Understanding the purpose and benefits of Gemba Audits in identifying
waste and inefficiencies in production processes.
 Planning a Gemba Audit:
o Introduction to the Gemba Audit planning process,
o the scope of the audit,
o selecting team members, and
o creating an audit checklist.
 Conducting a Gemba Audit:
o Participants will conduct a Gemba Audit of a selected area in the
workplace, using the audit checklist developed in the planning
process. Participants will work in teams to observe the
production process, identify waste, and record observations.
 Developing Countermeasures:
o Participants will work in teams to develop countermeasures to
address the root causes of problems identified during the
Gemba Audit.
 Presenting Findings:
o Each team will present their findings from the Gemba Audit,
including opportunities for improvement and recommended
countermeasures
 Develop action plans / timeline plans to further enhance the selected
Kaizen projects

Day 4

o First phase follow-up of Kaizen activities (group by group)

o The purpose is to align and ensure all activities are tracked
within the project timeline and KPI

o To correct any deviations in the project

o Clarify any deviations / improvement to the projects

 o Gemba audit of the projects – hands-on real Kaizen projects
progress

o Action planning – any further improvement planning to address

any deviations / further improvements

o KPI and dashboard monitoring

o Discussion of issues / problems encountered and how to solve

them

*Please note that Day 4 will be a consultation-based approach

for actual projects where we will look at how the projects
achieving their progress milestones

Day 5
 Kaizen project closing and continuous improvement
 Day 5 is set for final review of selected Kaizen projects and gemba
audits
 Management presentations / Kaizen competition award* (depending on
the company)
 Day 5 is also a consultation-based approach to align the Kaizen
projects with the learning and continuous improvement. This is to set a
foundation for the participants to continuously seek improvement in
future Kaizen projects.

Learning Process

Case studies, small group practical exercises, small group discussion,

facilitator presentations, skill practices, application planning and walk-through
simulations.