As we talk about Continuous Improvement (CI) and getting the ball rolling the real goal is to ensure your lean transformation is continual, sustaining and permanent. The CI team should drive for rapid improvements and work on develop of the team as you go. By focusing on a rapid pace of improvement your chance of regression is greatly reduced. Big kaizen events are nice, but encouraging employees to identify barriers and waste is the first vital step. Next is empowering employees to make changes based upon a standard for continuous improvement. This may be a paradigm shift for many, but if you follow along you will see why this system works.
The Rapid Improvement Events (RIE) I am talking about can complete the Plan and Do of the PDCA (Plan, Do, Check, Act) quickly by using small groups. These become part of the daily team communications where a review of the teams open action items are monitored and discussed regularly.
Continuous Improvement (CI) often takes a back seat to daily orders and operations. This firefighting often prevents getting a team together for 3-5 days for a kaizen blitz, which only focuses upon one work area. By deploying Daily RIEs using the PDCA model you can have numerous smaller wins happening in every corner of the organization, day after day, week after week and month after month. Using a three pronged approach helps move the Daily RIE activity into a cultural norm as opposed to a kaizen blitz philosophy.
- Identify and set the strategy and engage everyone in the new process. Meet and discuss with everyone; don’t send an email blast. Provide them with targets and incentives (people like being recognized).
- Set targets for RIEs and management. Give employees monthly goals and targets related to ideas generated and implemented. And, ensure management is following up by including the RIE as part of the daily team communications. Lastly, make sure leadership understands all of this hinges upon their regular GEMBA follow-up: Go see, ask, and seek to understand.
- Finally, keep the RIE activity simple. Use basic lean tools to get everyone involved. You don’t need extensive, all-encompassing detailed maps to get started; this just scares the majority of people away. Over time we can continue to develop their lean CI knowledge and toolbox, but for now just go after numbers. This includes: RIEs identified, RIEs implemented, and ensuring the number of people engaged grows each month.
By developing the team as you go, you will find the next set of CI lieutenants with your organization that will drive the ongoing cultural change. Rally around this team early, and share their successes throughout the organization. Find ways to build excitement and create internal competitions to drive daily RIE improvements.
