clearing the floor of the current process, painting the floor, then moving
equipment back in the new layout.
◆ Thursday: Evaluate process (Check), improve (Act), and keep going
through Plan-Do-Check-Act (PDCA) until you have a good approach.
◆ Friday: Develop a presentation for management. Present to manage-
ment. Celebrate. (Often the event ends after a lunch celebration.)
3. Follow-up to the workshop. There are always items that could not be done
during the week, which are put together as a homework list sometimes
called a “kaizen newsletter.” An action plan for what, who, and when is
prepared during the one-week workshop, and follow-up is needed to be
sure the items get done.
The kaizen workshop approach has gotten a bad name in many quarters. Jim
Womack used to laughingly refer to it as “kamikaze kaizen,” or “drive-by kaizen.”
The implication was that you swoop down fast and furiously, solve some prob-
lems, and swoop back up, or drive by, take aim and fire, and you’re done. The
problem is not that kaizen workshops are inherently bad, but that many com-
panies turned their entire lean process into a series of kaizen workshops along
with a kaizen promotion office to administer, support, and monitor kaizen
events. They may even count kaizen events as a key performance metric. There
are some serious weaknesses in this approach (see Figure 19-1):
- Kaizen workshops generally are point kaizen focusing on the individual
process. Since there is no broader vision, this will not lead to flow across
the enterprise. - The kaizen workshop generally ends with a homework list of to-do items,
which often do not get done since there is no serious ownership of the
process by the people in the work area. - While people in the work area are involved in the event and get very excited
and enthusiastic during the workshop, reality sets in the week after and
more often than not there is backsliding toward the pre-workshop state. - There is a tendency to judge kaizen events based only on short-term cost
savings, which does not drive true systems change. - There is no lasting cultural change.
This is not to say that good companies serious about lean should ignore the
kaizen event as a tool. There are some remarkable strengths of the kaizen event,
including: - This is an exciting experience for all involved. The concentrated analysis
and improvement, combined with the feeling of being part of a team, can
literally change people’s worldview. They can see waste and also see
what is possible when waste is removed.