by Ted Eytan, on 14 May 2008 06:51 am
The Journey | Tags: kaizen , reader question
Another Question: Quick and Easy Kaizen
Popularity: 23%
Tom Morgan asked Lee and I about this and we’re doing the natural thing, asking fellow experts for their input. Here’s the question, and Tom, you might want to flesh out a little bit about what the situation is. I’m sure many people here have experienced this lovely challenge:
Hi, Firstly thanks for the great blog.
I am considering the mechanics of implementing Quick and Easy kaizen (ala Norman Bodek) where I work. However I am not sure how it works where an idea involves a change to a key business process that spans several unrelated projects and in some cases geographically dispersed sites.
Any ideas how I might approach this?
on 15 May 2008 at 4:00 am 1.Tom said …
Somebody comes up with a good idea on how to improve a process they use on a daily basis. The same process is defined, sometimes in a very prescriptive manner, in our browser-based corporate reference system that serves 7 business lines at 7 different locations.
A paper chain is set in motion that involves amongst others the process owner and voila! 159 days later the change is implemented (or sometimes rejected).
Now wouldn’t it be nice if the change the guy thought of in the morning was implemented in the afternoon and he was given some recognition for it.
on 05 Jun 2008 at 5:06 pm 2.Sumanth Trickannad said …
I do not know if you got the answers you were looking for. If you are still looking, I hope my 2cents can help you.
I have been closely involved in the Q & E Kaizen concept. The basic premise is, people come up with small improvement ideas that affects their area. That is the key. Each person is an expert in their area, so they come up with the most ideas, and implement them.
In your case, since it spans other areas, see if the one big idea can be broken down into smaller bunch of ideas in each department. Get with the Managers for those departments, ask the right question that gets the team to start thinking of the smaller ideas, and you will finally get the desired result. Hope this helps.