Kaizen

How to Use 5S to Manage Kaizen

Avatar photo By Jon Miller Updated on September 29th, 2022

Ronak asked:

What should be ideal process flow for kaizen? What I mean is who can give their suggestions, how to evaluate kaizen event, should we plan an event on monthly basis?

This is a good question and one that reveals how common it is to struggle with defining and scoping kaizen activity. To some people kaizen equals “making small improvements continuously” while to others it means “rapid breakthrough improvements” and to yet others kaizen may mean simply “improvement” not bound by size or effort to implement. When we introduce other terms such as kaikaku (revolutionary improvement, transformations) or jishuken (management-led kaizen projects) things can get even murkier. Love or hate the Japanese word meaning “to change and make better“, kaizen is increasingly a part of business excellence, public sector revitalization, and even personal productivity. Toyota lives by the principles of kaizen and respect for people and will no doubt emerge stronger from their current troubles thanks to their adherence to these habits.

Not all kaizens are made the same. Some are small, some are big, some are simple and others are complex solutions, and there is everything in between. As a leader managing process improvement, it is necessary to understand how to properly field the various creative ideas from employees and help them actualize them. Not all ideas are worthy of action. Not all solutions came from a proper analysis of a problem, and even when they did the answers may not be targeted to a root cause. Some kaizens are “just do it” items while others require piloting and several PDCA cycles. What’s the well-intentioned leader to do in managing kaizen?

This is a place where a bit of knowledge on how to properly apply the 5S principles come in very handy. Using 5S to manage kaizen follows the same steps:

Sort the kaizens.

Distinguish between ideas that are well thought out and those that are solution jumps. Keep the ideas that are properly thought out and help people develop the ones that have promise. If an idea is bad, but there is a clear recognition of a problem, help them sort through their ideas to find one that is workable.

Set the kaizens in order.

Prioritize the kaizen by easy-to-do, big impact. A simple two-by-two matrix of impact and ease will help you present this visually. The 2nd S makes a place for everything and everything in its place, even kaizen ideas.

Sweep the kaizen.

Clear out the trivial, non-mission critical, and small but nagging tasks that fill up your mental space each day. E-mail is a good example. Turn it off, or let people know you’ve gone kaizenin’ and aren’t available. Sweep your workspace clean to make space for the highest priority kaizen activity. Be sure to return to that same desk later to kaizen the reason it gets filled with non-mission critical tasks in the first place.

Standardize the kaizen.

Before you go too far, it’s important to have a set and agreed criteria for what should be a kaizen suggestion, what requires a small team and a few days of activity, and what kaizens need to be on the management agenda as a series of projects

Sustain the kaizens.

Put the framework in place to rapidly evaluate and support employee suggestions within hours of their submission, not days. Build competency within a large number of staff in the basic kaizen principles and tools so that kaizen events become quick, weekly and responsive to real-time business needs. Above all, change the mindset from kaizen being an expert-led initiative to an irreversible way of life.

In the ideal process flow for kaizen:

  1. Anyone can give their suggestions
  2. The immediate team leader or supervisor evaluates them within the course of the day
  3. The timing and means of implementation are as close to today as possible and uses as few resources as possible.

A lot of foundation building is required in order to have a kaizen suggestion system that can handle thousands of ideas implemented each month. Start by designing a system that avoids these top 10 suggestion system pitfalls.

Put people first, apply the logic of lean, and be true to the principles. As with lean implementation in the workplace, 5S is a good place to start when organizing how you manage kaizen activity. That’s only the beginning, and there is no end to the improvement of process flow, even when the process is kaizen.


  1. Tim McMahon

    September 29, 2009 - 5:18 pm
    Reply

    Jon has great thoughts on this. I would also recommend making these events visible. It is important to use a charter type method to characterize and evaluate various kaizen events. This can help in planning. As you consider these events you can consider making them visible of a board in various methods including a calendar view. This allows you to understand timing and resources better. But as far as deciding what to do it is important that the charter include improvement measurables to guage improvement activity by. The event should then be related to policy deployment or the strategic direction of the organization. While not perfect it will help to use a charter for Kaizen and to make those kaizen events visible.

  2. Ronak

    September 29, 2009 - 7:34 pm
    Reply

    Thank you John for the reply, The idea of using 5S method for implementing Kaizen is really good. Very importantly the pitfalls of a suggestion system is a good article.
    This will definately help me in implementing and sustaining kaizen.

  3. Jan Jochmann

    September 30, 2009 - 2:57 am
    Reply

    I really like the related article “top 10 suggestion system pitfalls”.
    I think you should add it to the “Lists” column in the bottom of the website.
    Keep up the great job of educating us on lean 🙂
    Regards
    Jan

  4. Anonymous

    September 30, 2009 - 5:32 am
    Reply

    Jon, I enjoy your post and try to peek at it daily. I would add one suggestion to your post on how to use 5S with Kaizen. Make sure any and all events support the overall objectives of the company “true north”, the A3 process will help to sort out those improvements that may be a bit off track.
    Paul E. Cary
    Lean Sensei
    VIBCO

  5. Jon Miller

    October 3, 2009 - 10:26 pm
    Reply

    Hi Jan – good suggestion. We will add it.
    Hi Paul – I wouldn’t say that ALL kaizens should link through an A3 to true north. It is always good to have unexpected bottom-up kaizens. the true north or company strategy can be flawed, or unable to see the realities of local conditions which still require kaizen and correction even though they may not be strategic. Also for most large organizations it is rare that the top level true north objectives have relevance to every single person. Ideally they should, but we need both top-down and bottom-up kaizen activity.
    Thanks for your comments.

  6. Thomas Hughes

    September 29, 2022 - 2:17 pm
    Reply

    A coworker and I are trying to get employees on board with 5s by starting a 5s competition line vs line .we have created an awesome 5s trophy that the winning line will hold the trophy and get a couple of company perks until another line beats them . i’m hoping for some advice on how to audit the lines to determine the winner and how would I incorporate sustain and standardize in the audit . I would love to hear any suggestions or if anyone else is doing this please connect with me .

    Thank you to all Thomas

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