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Gotta Go Lean Blog

Kaizen Creativity: Breaking Preconceived Notions

One of the harder things for people to do at work is to really cut their creativity loose. Industry as a whole tends to reward successful creativity, but when ideas, especially ones that have just a sprinkling of ‘crazy’ on top, don’t pan out, the person can be viewed in a less than positive light. Lean, especially kaizen events, requires a lot of creativity to be successful. In effect, Lean is a very broad approach Read more…

By Jeff Hajek, ago

Domino’s Restaurant Kaizen

I was watching a little TV to wind down this evening, and saw an interesting commercial from Domino’s. Apparently, the pizza franchise did a little restaurant kaizen and came up with a new recipe. I am sure restaurants are constantly tweaking their processes and their secret ingredients, but this is the first time I have seen one be so open about how bad their customers viewed the old way. The quotes the commercial used were Read more…

By Jeff Hajek, ago

The Meaning of Lean (+Video)

I’m sure you’ve heard many different definitions about what the meaning of Lean is. The strictest meaning will likely center around creating flow, or will possibly mention inventory reduction. I, however, subscribe to a far broader meaning of Lean. I view it as any effort to reduce waste and improve the delivery of value to the customer. With that more liberal definition, the origin of Lean becomes much earlier. It isn’t the publishing of the Read more…

By Jeff Hajek, ago

Lean and the News

The more I read about problems that companies and other organizations encounter, the more I believe that Lean is the answer. As I write this, one of the stories in the current news cycle is about how a man was able to walk into a terminal at Newark airport by going the wrong way through a guarded exit. Mark Graban wrote an interesting article on LeanBlog.org that addressed the issue of how the person on Read more…

By Jeff Hajek, ago

9 Tips to Running a More Effective Kaizen

If you are in a Lean company, you probably already have a fairly well defined kaizen process. After all, an effective kaizen is one of the most powerful continuous improvement tools in your Lean kit. Like all things, though, your kaizen process probably has room for improvement. I’ve compiled a list of 9 tips to make your kaizen process more effective. After you have finished reading it, I’d love to hear any other ideas you Read more…

By Jeff Hajek, ago

Go to Gemba

The refrain “Go to Gemba” simply means to go to the place where the work is being done for answers to process questions. Far too often, kaizen teams will discuss a process while sitting in a conference room. Instead, they should “go to gemba” and be where the action is. Actually being close to the sights, sounds, and even the smells of a shop floor makes the nuances of a process leap out at you. Read more…

By Jeff Hajek, ago

Productive Work: How to Quickly Gauge Worker Productivity

As a Lean consultant, I do a lot of reading about Lean and keep my ear to the ground to try to find new tips and tricks to deliver more value to my clients and the readers of the content on my website. Because I’ve been doing this a while, the pace of the forehead-smackers has slowed down considerably. Those are the ones where you see an obvious trick that you figure you should have Read more…

By Jeff Hajek, ago

Supplier Criteria: Do They Apply to Internal Suppliers, too?

Most well-managed companies track the performance of its suppliers. Or more specifically, they track the performance of their external suppliers. Common Supplier Criteria Lead time Quality On-time delivery Responsiveness to questions and problems Orders shipped complete As you can see, there are many criteria with which to measure suppliers. Here’s the question, though. How many of these well-managed companies also hold their own internal suppliers to these same criteria? One of my Japanese consultants asked Read more…

By Jeff Hajek, ago

Be Flexible in Your Kaizen Project

The success of a kaizen project is closely correlated to its proper, thorough planning. But there is also a need to avoid going into a kaizen project with pre-conceived notions of specific changes. Those two opposing factors can create a situation where a team starts diving into a kaizen project and realizes that there is a better option to get bigger gains. For example, a team may be doing a kaizen project on the collections Read more…

By Jeff Hajek, ago

Make Quality Better: Eliminate Hammers

To make quality better, you frequently have to go hunting for problems. One indicator of problems, though, is hard to miss. In heavy manufacturing, you can walk through a facility and hear the sounds of hammers ringing off in the distance. Let’s start off for a moment and think why people are using hammers in the first place. The parts are built perfectly to spec, but the tolerance in the design is so tight that Read more…

By Jeff Hajek, ago

The Visual Workplace: Shorten Those Shelves!

Most people around Lean have heard the term ‘visual workplace’. They know that it is the art of making problems leap out at you, and being able to have a process immediately communicate its status to an observer. One barrier to creating an effective visual workplace is the practice of using tall shelves and workbenches. These structures, in effect, create walls between workers. The benefits of lower shelves and workstations include: Easier communication between team Read more…

By Jeff Hajek, ago