Long-term countermeasures are intended to permanently eliminate the root
causes. Implementation timing may extend beyond a week, or beyond months.
In these cases it is best to divide the task into smaller increments. This provides
two benefits:
- Smaller, bite-sized tasks provide a smaller check frequency interval.
Progress toward completion can be more closely monitored and assis-
tance provided if the task falls behind schedule. - The idea’s effectiveness may be tested after a small portion is completed
rather than waiting until the entire process is completed and then deter-
mining that the idea was flawed.
For example, a proposal to implement a material replenishment kanban
process for 2,000 individual parts is a major undertaking. The total time
required may be two to three months. The team needs to analyze and determine
specific design parameters regarding reorder points, container sizes, and the
number of kanban required in the system. If the team analyzes all 2,000 items
prior to actual implementation of physical kanban, they may discover flaws in
their rationale. This discovery would occur very late in the implementation
process, and many hours would be lost. In addition, no benefit would be
achieved during the two- to three-month period. Essentially this is the result of
“batching” the implementation instead of breaking it into a small batch flow.
Dividing the task into 25-percent segments, beginning with the 25 percent
most commonly used parts (to get the greatest benefit first), would allow the
team to verify their process, ensure desired results, andgain partial benefit ear-
lier in the process. The team could provide feedback on their activity after three
weeks, an intermediate check to verify that the entire task will be completed as
scheduled (with additional feedback after six and nine weeks). Following these
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Dividing long-term countermeasures into smaller increments is
essentially the concept of heijunka, or leveling, applied to problem
solving. In production operations the larger time frame—say one
month—is first divided into smaller daily increments (usually per
shift). This daily requirement is segmented further into an hourly
requirement, and the production result is verified each hour. In this
way, adjustments can be made throughout the day, based on the
checking frequency (hourly), to ensure the successful completion
of the task at the end of the period (first the day, then the month).
Utilization of this leveling principle for problem solving greatly
increases the likelihood of producing the desired results.