Killer Kaizen

Folks may not be clear on Kaizen.

If you read the original books that came here from Japan trying to explain to the West what ‘magic’ Japan has been using to beat the Big 3 (this was a while ago, so you are forgiven if this doesn’t ring a bell) you will not find instructions on how to do a Kaizen. Ford, GM, and Chrysler were flinging all kinds of accusations at Japan (in particular Toyota) back in the 70’s and 80’s. It became such a big deal that America asked for a restraint from Japan – a Voluntary Export Restraint (VER) – so they wouldn’t overrun the sales of the Big 3. We were terrified. How are they doing it? They must be selling at a loss – that’s the only way.

Author’s note – this meant the Japanese cars were sold at a premium, increasing profit for Japanese car manufacturers. You can’t sell more cars, but you can make more money selling those you do sell. Americans are smart that way.

So Japan sent a bunch of folks over here to try and explain. They did this voodoo called “Kaizen”. The first several books on the subject were great at explaining what was going on in Japan, but in America we need detailed instruction. It’s better if it’s on a form.

Eventually several experts on Kaizen (Americans who thought it through and figured out a formula) created various ways to do a Kaizen. I am no exception – I have a book on the subject, because I had to keep rewriting the same info to help show people some of the methods for doing what essentially came naturally to the Japanese.

The Killer Kaizen.

If you read through the books from the 1980s trying to wake up American business to the concept, Kaizen just means “small change”. It also means “good change”, the Japanese language seems to have a lot of flexibility with nouns and verbs and adjectives. The general approach is to empower the production team (the experts) to constantly look for ways to do things better. Improvements are celebrated, company success is shared.

I apologize, I went too fast.

Kaizen means small change. Small. Little. Tiny. An incremental change in the direction of a much improved process. A change so small it is hardly noticeable, but has a significant impact on the process quality. Itty bitty change. Teeny. As small as you can get away with.

Since these changes are so small, they can happen often. Really frequently. Sometimes several in a week. One Kaizen might take a day, or a morning. a big one might take a week. If you are always taking small steps in a particular direction, you will get there. And you might not even break a sweat. In fact, you might get there almost without noticing.

And that’s what makes a Killer Kaizen. Small, little overhead. Big impact.

Here’s one. A company in Charlotte, North Carolina, was manufacturing an assembly and they had a production line of eleven folks. In that line each bench had a dedicated set of tools, but one tools – a Philips screwdriver, was used everywhere. If one screwdriver went missing, they would just borrow from each other. First of all, how could it go missing? Second, what happens when everyone starts borrowing tools? And last, how long does it take to find the screwdriver after you put it down?

The line made one unit every 15 seconds, the product SRP was $125. Fast math, that means the line value is $8.33 per second, or $39.6M per year. Someone on the line suggested they get power screwdrivers and hang them from above the bench – can’t lose them, and they work faster. The impact was not really noticable the first month and the manufacturing engineer caught some flak. The next month accounting came back and said the line was producing slightly more than last month. When they ran the numbers, they found the improvement reduced the line labor by an average of one second per unit. One second. Not much, and the operators were happy because the weren’t twisting screwdrivers all day.

One second means the difference between $39.6M and $42.4M annually. Production increase of $2.8M, because of a suggestion to use power screwdrivers.

Tiny, itty bitty change. Big difference.

The killer Kaizen is the one that makes small changes for big improvements.

Wait. Wait, wait, wait. I do NOT mean that now you have to go find the unicorn of Kaizen suggestions. We are SO American. It means that we want to always look for small improvements. Everyone! Not just management, not just the Six Sigma person – Everyone! And don’t make it a huge event.

What is the point?

This article is discussing Kaizen as small events. When Kaizen become large events spanning weeks or months, they are no longer Kaizen. I’m not sure what they are at that point. Kaizen is a powerful, awesome tool. So powerful in fact that the United States asked another country to stop selling things here because we couldn’t compete. BTW – that was not a one-time event. Even now, in the last administration, we imposed limits on imports because we can’t compete. The complaint is that U.S. cars don’t share import/export volumes with Japan. Japan doesn’t want most of our cars, and their population is 30% of ours. It’s not personal.

The Killer Kaizen is small, targeted and effective. Consider effectivity before implementation, and then implement FAST. Get in, get it done, get out. Don’t overthink the thing.