Kaizen

Office Kaizen

Office Kaizen uses the Lean principle of "flow" as of the means of increasing the velocity and accuracy of information transactions in each Value Stream.

Creating a Lean Office with good information flow is often more difficult than making good flow in manufacturing. The keys to making information flow are:

• Knowing what a good Lean Office looks like,
• Knowing where to get started with Office Kaizen.

An effective approach is to take a high-level Value Stream Map and analyzing the detailed steps through Information Flow Mapping. ACI uses an effective Office Kaizen approach. Techniques from lean or breakthrough Kaizen (see further) can be applied as well as others.

Some hints for improving information flow are:

• Identify value & waste in the transactions (Information Flow Mapping)
• Apply 5S to the work area and reduce wasted space and effort
• Organize the office layout for good work flow and visibility ("Open office")
• Identify the customer "pull" and pacing method
• Create visual indicators of customer demand and target work pace (Takt)
• Integrate the administration into the Value Stream by bringing the processes closer to the customer ("Gemba office").

Breakthrough Kaizen

One of A.C.I. ’s primary improvement tools is our five-day Kaizen Breakthrough workshop. On day one, we form dedicated teams with your people and share the concepts and objectives we will implement. From then on, we are on the floor service or production – “seeing” time, identifying waste and reconfiguring the operation to achieve flow. Teams are empowered to make immediate changes.

At the end of the week, each team has achieved dramatic operational improvements.
The model we follow is:

This is accomplished by applying techniques and tools including:

• Lean flow design
• Cellular manufacturing
• Plant layout
• Quick Change
• 5S
• Elimination of 7 wastes
• Design for continuous flow
• Process control
• Synchronization/Pull
• Quality management
• Employee development

Breakthrough Kaizen is accelerated and intensive improvement in one critical area of the business. It is a process for improving Cost, Quality and Delivery performance by eliminating waste. It is a process for learning Lean techniques that results in:

• Substantial savings in time, space and labor.
• Reduced cycle times, reducing inventory, reducing errors, defects, and lessening the need for capital expenditure.
• Product based "one at a time" flow production.
• Increasing throughput by eliminating everything that is non-value added.

The benefits are:

• Dramatic improvement in an area of the business
• It attacks chronic underlying problems and achieves between 30% and 70% improvement
• It is focused and of a specific duration

Any type of business will benefit from this focused improvement effort. Those that want dramatic short-term improvement in a critical area or process and those who want a "hands-on" approach to improvement will find this tool to be highly valuable.

We Support and Facilitate:

• Pre-Plan period (2-4 weeks prior to the scheduled event): We assist with process selection, determining expectations and objectives, defining needed baseline information, and Team Roles.
• Hold Event: We conduct and facilitate 5 days of intensive hands on learning on the shop floor which includes a full day of training.
• Learn and Apply: We conduct weekly follow-up through phone, email, and video conferencing.
• Health Check: 30 days following the event, we assess the benefits and help ensure the gains are sustained. We address how the learning might be more widely applied.