A Question About Kaizen

I would definitely prefer having 1000 people solving each month one $200 problem even if it makes lower profit for my organisation. Thats because it means the culture of my entire organisation is perfectly aligned with problem solving mentality and principles and not depending entirely on few brilliant individuals (who can, if properly awarded, even leave your company and leave you with nothing in hand…). This is also one of the main principles of lean thinking: transform the culture of your organisation to become the thinking creature and rewards will never miss out. If you develop 1000 people on problem solving, today they will solve one $200 problem but tomorrow they could resolve (with the same principles of lean thinking and problem solving…) one $2k problem or one $20k or $200k problem. Don’t think short-term but think also about your long-term strategies…

John, At VIBCO We have an imbedded lean culture that permiates our company, Small changes are being made daily. Some of the improvements are small and not being captured, that being said is’t just the way people think, it’s in their DNA. To have a company where average people are solving problems is more sustainable, more productive, more empowering, more propogating.

I’m going to argue for small improvements, because that represents a cultural shift for the organization toward TQM, whereas 10 people represent a sub-culture of TQM fighting against the rest of the bureaucracy. Which would lead me to argue that your time line for $250k improvements might not be, um, ambitious.

Dear Jon
An interesting question, is it better to have 10 brilliant experts (6 Sigma black belts etc)each making one big improvement each, or 1000 regular employees making 1 improvement regularly every month.?
I would say that neither one senario on its own is a perfect solution. I would try to engage every employee in improvement activities each to their maximum potential. So in your example the organisation would accrue a total of $4.9M of benefits. In this Organisation we have want to engage all levels of employee in continuous improvement activities. We have developed different approaches for each level of employee in order to achieve this desire.
For Example.
Good Spot ……….. Operators are encouraged to point out to their line manager anything they believe is abnormal.
Suggestion Scheme … Everyone is encouraged to make improvement suggestions.
Kaizen 10 Steps …. Teams and individuals (brilliant or otherwise) are encouraged to carryout systematic problem solving, document their activitites and share the best practice they develop with everyone.
All of these schemes are enabled through empowerment, driven by management involvement and rewarded or recognised appropriately.
I know some will say you can’t have the best of both worlds but we are not going to give up trying.
Thanks & Regards
Chris

I guess I’ll ask a question in the spirit of the book “Extreme Toyota”…Why do you have to choose? Why can’t both co-exist? To me, this is an ideal situation with a few “brilliant” people working on some bigger picture projects and coaching/reinforcing the shop floor to make the localized improvements in their areas/span of control.

So everyone is willing to take a $100,000 pay cut in the name of upholding a principle… This is a hard thing for most, especially when another zero is added, but over the long run it is definitely the right thing to do.
To answer Gary’s question, here are 3 arguments for total involvement versus expert-driven continuous improvement:
1. Time value of money. When changes are made every day, you start saving money every day. This isn’t accurately reflected in the calculation above, although you can see the gaps between the green line and the jagged red line.
2. Rapid detection of problems. When everyone is engaged in problem solving they will be more aware of even the smallest issues. A small number of experts working on larger projects may overlook small, day-to-day issues until they turn into big problems.
3. Risk minimization. Most companies starting out in Lean are in the mode to develop or hire those 10 brilliant people to build a core Lean team or promotion office. If it’s a “make or buy” companies in a hurry will “buy,” or hire someone who is experienced. The perception is that this is easier than training and empowering hundreds of people. The risk comes from a company losing 1 of these 10 brilliant people when another company hires them away or if the make a career change for any reason.
There are more reasons, perhaps others can comment on what has worked for them.
To Joe W’s point, we shouldn’t have to choose. In reality resources are limited. In some ways these two are seen as conflicting or parallel ways of doing continuous improvement because the 10-person approach is seen as a management development approach and is typically sold at the C-level while the 1,000-person approach is seen as “employee engagement” which is an HR channel, site manager level at most. What we need are C-level people who see the true value of employee engagement.

Jon, at what point should one consider appropriate to choose to employ the 10 person approach/or the 1,ooo person approach?

Hi Alex,
I think Brian answered your question. Ideally when your kaizen activity has improved productivity you will be able to free up 1 or more people to become full-time continuous improvement supporters. The traditional approach has been to hire the 10 people right away who may or may not successfully engage the other 1,000. The kaizen approach is to engage the 1,000 with or without the 10 brilliant people.
Of course depending on the type of industry you may need engineers whose job it is to investigate new technologies, processes and so forth to reduce cost. The same can be said of senior management who look for ways to increase revenue and reduce costs. In reality you need both and should not polarize to either/or but instead thoroughly understand the costs and benefits of each so that you can make the right decision for you.

Hi Jon,
I offer up a take on this at the TWI Blog. One thing the graph doesn’t take into account is the typical backsliding that goes along with “Big K” events. Small k’s get better buy-in because the owner of the idea puts the idea into action. This was proven in the WWII TWI Job Methods program at the Picatinny Arsenal. $24M in savings were created through the Job Methods program over its three year duration in war production. That’s a lot of money for 1945 and it all came from the minds of shop floor leaders who were looking at the small things.
It is no surprise then to see the TWI-Kaizen connection after 60 years. TWI Job Methods was exported to Japan in 1951, that the Japanese built on the work simplification and waste elimination principles of this American program and turned it into their kaizen teian programs. The book titled, 40 years 20 Million Ideas, published in 1990 says it all.
Of course, the right answer is that you need both Big K and Small k. Looking forward into the future, if we had a small k culture in place first, something to uphold and sustain the Big K changes – your total savings is nearly $50 million and smart people to show for it.

I have never seen a single person single-handledly SOLVE a problem. Virtually all of the comments overlook the fact that even Six Sigma Black Belts “lead a team”–they don’t do all of the data collection, all of the analysis, all of the development and implementation of containment, corrective, and preventive actions required to “solve” a problem. So, the cost of solving that 1 problem is much greater than the price of the one person who gets the credit. On the other hand, most $200 problems can be solved in a few minutes by a small team during the normal course of the day–the time they spend solving the problem is seldom incremental (an additional cost), they’re already at work being paid and do the solving during shift change, downtime, etc.. I support the investment in some sort of “step change improvement specialists” (call them Black Belts or whatever else you want), but, if I had to choose, I’d prefer to invest some money in a lot of people rather than a lot in a few people.

Definitely the 1000 for many of the above reasons but also for the fact that there will be at least 10 of the thousand that will go on to become one of the brilliant people mentioned, if the company retains them. You will have the best of both worlds.

Joe W and Brian Buck got it right.
Lean philosophy doesn’t have to be dogmatic, and the world of removing waste is all about creating opportunity being pragmatic.
So do you need 1000 people thinking about $250 improvements ? Sure you do !
Are you ready to invest in brilliant workforce to solve $250,000 issues ? You’d be foolish not to !
And take take a deep breath and think for a while what you mean by “brilliant people”. Are you subconsciously thinking “engineers” ? that would be a second mistake (after the first which one to imagine you have to choose between 10/1000).
So take one of your brilliant people and have him work with your “average” 1,000 to train them to be brilliant, so they can think about $500 ideas AND participate in making sure the $250,000 ones are useful and will be sustained long term (and most probably they’ll become $300,000 in the process…)
Cheers

Hi Jason,
We do offer e-training at Gemba Academy. With a free subscription you can view 5 videos and the paid subscription currently has 34 videos, with more added each month.

This is an excellent question but the answer is very simple, peoples who have some knowledge about KAIZEN CREATIVE SUGGESTION SYSTEM are easily understand that the “knowledge of 10 people is better than one”.
Another thing that the Ideas from grassroots’ level are more beneficial and profitable, remember that these are not only 1000 suggestion, 1000 peoples show their participations which will increase ownership in your company, this ownership convert into a cultural change and which ultimately convert into a good, healthy, smart and money-spinning organization.

If Kaizen is done right savings are consequence of it

Thank you for sharing