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The Kaizen Blitz: Accelerating Breakthroughs in Productivity and Performance
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When was the last time your company improved productivity from 20 percent to 60 percent—in only four days? Or cut inventory by 50 percent in the same amount of time? Remarkable results like these were delivered by teams of employees and those who participated in the Association for Manufacturing Excellence Kaizen BlitzSM events. Using the Kaizen Blitz, employees learned how to work as a team to tackle problems from the shop floor and, most importantly, how to solve them quickly.
That's what The Kaizen Blitz can teach you. Simply translated as "continuous improvement," kaizen is a highly focused process aimed at producing incremental performance improvements in narrowly targeted areas. The Kaizen Blitz is a powerful technique that delivers breakthrough improvements throughout an organization—fast. This book will show you how the Kaizen Blitz works and how to bring the extraordinary benefits of this approach to your company. Coauthored by executives of the AME, the book provides a frank discussion of what kaizen will and won't do, the preparation necessary, obstacles to be wary of, and the results you can expect.
The Kaizen Blitz involves everyone across an organization—managers and workers alike. 44t is a low-cost, hands-on process, where all team members are equal and everyone gets their hands dirty. This thorough guide explains how your company can put together your own Kaizen Blitz teams to rapidly develop, test, and refine solutions to problems, leaving a new process in place in just a few days. It outlines how employees can work side by side to implement the best of their ideas for reaching common business goals, such as inventory reduction, capacity expansion, cost reduction, and leveraging capital investments. You will discover how the application of a few simple tools in a straightforward, common-sense approach can bring about real and profound change, provided that management is fully committed and ready to lead the process.
In addition, the authors of this important book:
- Help you determine whether your organization is ready to attempt the Kaizen Blitz
- Outline what you need for an initial Kaizen Blitz project—and what to avoid
- Explain why software package-driven process change has limitations
- Cite results and applications in top U.S. manufacturers.
If you are committed to adopting lean manufacturing; if you want an effective tool to address specific problems in your company; if you need radical change to happen now, The Kaizen Blitz will deliver beyond your highest expectations.
The Association for Manufacturing Excellence has pioneered a powerful version of kaizen—a process for achieving continuous improvement in an organization—called the Kaizen Blitz.SM This book will show you how to use this remarkable tool to deliver breakthrough improvements in your company in areas like productivity, inventory reduction, capacity expansion, and much more. You'll learn how to assemble a kaizen team that will determine solutions to your company's specific problems by designing new systems, correcting mistakes quickly and moving on, running and refining procedures, and ultimately demonstrating a new process in place in just a few days. You'll also read about top U.S. manufacturers who have successfully used the Kaizen Blitz to bring about radical, positive change. If your company is ready to achieve dramatic results by implementing new processes—not just proposed, but in place and functioning—in a matter of days, the Kaizen Blitz is the way to make it happen.
From the Inside Flap
When was the last time your company improved productivity from 20 percent to 60 percent—in only four days? Or cut inventory by 50 percent in the same amount of time? Remarkable results like these were delivered by teams of employees and those who participated in the Association for Manufacturing Excellence Kaizen BlitzSM events. Using the Kaizen Blitz, employees learned how to work as a team to tackle problems from the shop floor and, most importantly, how to solve them quickly. That’s what The Kaizen Blitz can teach you. Simply translated as "continuous improvement," kaizen is a highly focused process aimed at producing incremental performance improvements in narrowly targeted areas. The Kaizen Blitz is a powerful technique that delivers breakthrough improvements throughout an organization—fast. This book will show you how the Kaizen Blitz works and how to bring the extraordinary benefits of this approach to your company. Coauthored by executives of the AME, the book provides a frank discussion of what kaizen will and won’t do, the preparation necessary, obstacles to be wary of, and the results you can expect. The Kaizen Blitz involves everyone across an organization—managers and workers alike. It is a low-cost, hands-on process, where all team members are equal and everyone gets their hands dirty. This thorough guide explains how your company can put together your own Kaizen Blitz teams to rapidly develop, test, and refine solutions to problems, leaving a new process in place in just a few days. It outlines how employees can work side by side to implement the best of their ideas for reaching common business goals, such as inventory reduction, capacity expansion, cost reduction, and leveraging capital investments. You will discover how the application of a few simple tools in a straightforward, commonsense approach can bring about real and profound change, provided that management is fully committed and ready to lead the process. In addition, the authors of this important book:
- Help you determine whether your organization is ready to attempt the Kaizen Blitz
- Outline what you need for an initial Kaizen Blitz project—and what to avoid
- Explain why software package-driven process change has limitations
- Cite results and applications in top U.S. manufacturers.
If you are committed to adopting lean manufacturing; if you want an effective tool to address specific problems in your company; if you need radical change to happen now, The Kaizen Blitz will deliver beyond your highest expectations.
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Review
Here's an easy-to-read guide to a powerful process that's driving waste out of North American companies. It's very timely and to the point as authors Laraia, Moody, and Hall, deliver a clear appreciation of what the `Kaizen Blitz' is and - most importantly - how to deploy it.
The Association for Manufacturing Excellence (AME) has combined Kaizen, the Japanese word for `continuous improvement,' with 'blitz' meaning 'lightning fast' to present a term which appears to be contradictory. It works well as it conveys the sprit of 'rapid improvement' in the right context.
The 'Blitz' was developed by AME in 1994 around an accelerated 4-day format. What caught everyone's attention was the contrast between the Blitz format and the traditional formats for workshops or seminars. With the Kaizen Blitz you go with sleeves rolled up to 'make things happen' as you help implement solutions with a team in only 4 days. Typical results from actual Blitzes may yield productivity improvements in the 20-60% range, or setup time reductions in the 70-90% range with , process time reductions of 40-80%, inventory reductions of 30-70% and walking distance reductions of from 40-90%. The need for such improvements ensure long-term competiitve positions which makes this book a worthwhile addition by any operations leader.
The book provides an unvarnished understanding of what to expect when undertaking high speed improvement changes. The authors practice what they preach by keeping descriptions and discussions simple, practical, and too the point. The book contains a good blend of `how to' descriptions, backgrounds, checklists, and copies of the forms used to document and track performance throughout the Blitz.
Included in the book is a section on `Sustaining the Gain,' an important aspect that defeats many such ventures. The book is rich with practical examples for practitioners to gain from while it keeps us thinking about 'Lean Manufacturing' and the appropriatness of the Blitz as a Lean tool.
The book uses real-world examples throughout with data drawn from Blitzes in the US and Canada. Authors Tony Laraia and Dr. Robert Hall were on hand last fall at the AME Manufacturing Simplicity Conference in Toronto, which demonstrated the power of the Kaizen Blitz to over 1000 participants through the Blitz hosted by Steelcase Canada.
The Blitz is becoming increasingly popular across North America with a wide range of organizations including the Ontario-based 17-company High Performance Manufacturing Consortium, which is doing them on a monthly basis.
In summary, this book is a must read for anyone who must make rapid improvements - and make them fast. It will demystify all aspects of the Kaizen Blitz and make you want to get those blue jeans on as you roll up your sleeves to get started. By David C. Hogg.
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