Kaizen Event: Scope, Team, Preparation and Daily Targets

Why it matters

Kaizen is an approach that improves a defined problem through small, testable changes. A kaizen event is the organized work of that approach for a specific scope and duration. That the event is short does not mean the preparation is unimportant. If the boundary of the problem, the evidence of the current state and the decision authorities are unclear, the team spends its time debating which task to do instead of trying solutions. At the start, the goal, the product family, the work area and the conditions that will not be changed must be written down. That way, not every problem found during the event is added to the scope of the same week. A newly found issue is recorded; if it disturbs the current purpose, it is treated as separate work. The scope is not a wall that blocks learning but an agreement that protects the capacity at hand.

The unit of the plan is not only the meeting. Data collection, observation with the worker, fixture preparation, safety review, trial, quality verification and approval also consume resources. Even if some of them look short, they may be mandatory before other tasks can start. A team sitting idle while waiting for an approval can come from the approval not appearing in the task list. For this reason the completion condition of every task is written concretely. Instead of the phrase preparation completed, an observable result is required, such as trial material at the point of use and its suitability verified. The owner of a task does not have to be the person who does it alone, but the person responsible for delivering the acceptance evidence must be clear. A task without an owner takes up space in the calendar yet cannot be managed.

Judging capacity by the total hours of the whole team is misleading. You cannot turn a maintenance technician's hours into a quality approval, or a quality officer's hours into maintenance work that requires authorization. In addition, the time a person assigned to production sets aside for the event must really be freed up. Showing the same hour as both covering the production load and working on the event does not create capacity. Usable time does not come automatically out of the shift duration; task handover and backup confirmation are needed. Even when the role load is acceptable, the work cannot be done if the predecessors are sequenced wrongly. The plan has two tests: will the required resource be available at the right time, and will the evidence needed to start the task be ready at that moment? These questions are answered separately.

The daily target should be built on the learning to be gained and the output to be accepted, not on the number of boxes to be closed. If the result of a trial is a failure, that result is also valuable; the plan does not move on to the next task as if the change had succeeded. The closing of activities at the end of the event does not show that the improvement is lasting. The new method study findings and the conditions of application are recorded, and follow-up responsibility is assigned. Sustainment will be tested separately, through the result trend and method conformity, in the lesson Post-Kaizen Sustainment Audit. The aim here is not to declare success in one week but to set up a safe trial and a sequence of verifiable decisions. Updating the plan at the end of the day means reassessing the remaining capacity without making the missing work invisible.

Separate in advance the responsibilities of the person who completes the work and the person who accepts the delivery. If authorization or an independent review is required, assign different people. The corrections that come out of a review also consume resources. Verify assumptions such as material delivery, access to equipment and the availability of the decision-maker; do not present unverified conditions as completed preparation.

Formula