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Exclusive Excerpt from “Strategic KAIZEN™”: Chapter 18

Enjoy an excerpt of Masaaki Imai’s third book “Strategic KAIZEN™: Using Flow, Synchronization, and Leveling [FSL™] Assessment to Measure and Strengthen Operational Performance” and grab your copy today via this link.

Chapter 18: CONDUCTING THE FSL REVIEWS

“Organizations can benefit greatly from reviewing their own current FSL status. Each review will provide to the management where FSL has been successfully practiced and where the company needs to proceed to the next step for further improvement. Such an FSL review should be carried out one day every month until the total conversion has been confirmed…

…This chapter includes lists of individual operational subjects showing typical traditional shop floor activities in every company. Each item needs to be carefully reviewed from the standpoint of checking how they relate to lean FSL practices…

…In conducting such reviews, the comparison between the traditional companies and the lean companies as described in the following section should be considered…

…The Features of Lean Companies

1. The moment the flow is disconnected, it is visually detected at once.
2. It employs minimum resources.
3. It minimizes the WIP (work-in-process) and inventories.
4. It minimizes total operational time and length.
5. It eliminates Muda, Mura (irregularity or unevenness), and Muri (strain, overburden of difficulty) activities.
6. It stabilizes and improves quality.
7. It fosters personal and organizational self-discipline to observe standards and pay attention to details.
8. It encourages cross-functional cooperation among different functions and processes.
9. It enhances the morale of the entire organization.
10. Cross-functional collaboration is encouraged among functional units within and without [sic] the company.”

Masaaki Imai, founder of Kaizen Institute, and author of KAIZEN™, Gemba KAIZEN™ and Strategic KAIZEN™. © 2021 by McGraw Hill. Reprinted with permission.