A core practice of all Lean companies is to continuously evaluate and improve the practices of the company. It is a simple concept but takes discipline and perseverance to master.
Continuous Improvement
“Ongoing work to always look at ways of improving the processes and practices. The idea is that many small changes over time add up to big change/improvement.”
When talking to people about work and improvements they often comment that they don’t know this or they don’t know that.
In the spirit of Kaizen it is important to remember that you improve yourself in increments just as you improve the process or the product. Strive to better yourself by challenging yourself and always try do to your best. Over time your knowledge and capacity will increase step by step.
Maya Angelou expressed this idea beautifully and as you know by now I am real sucker for good quotations.
“Do the best you can until you know better. Then when you know better, do better.”
Maya Angelou
To have a solid foundation for any improvement you need to establish standard work.
Standard work:
The foundation of continuous improvements is standardized work. Any process must be standardized to the best known way of working from where improvements can be made.
In Lean we often talk about continous improvement, Kaizen. Sometimes we do have to make more radical change to an organization as in restructuring an entire plant or business unit. This is known as Kaikaku.
Kaikaku:
Japanese term for “radical change”. Where Kaizen are small continous improvements Kaikaku are larger bussiness wide changes during a limited time.
In the world of Lean, Shigeo Shingo is a superstar. It is not hard to find wisdom in his writings. Here are two gems that I think are very inspirational.
“Lean is not so much about eliminating waste, it is about finding waste.”
Shigeo Shingo
To me, Shingo is saying that the acts of eliminating waste must be based on the proper understanding of waste, where to find it and how to see it. Figuring out where you want or need to go is just as important is starting the journey to implement the changes.
“There are four purposes of improvement, easier, better, faster and cheaper. These four appear in the order of priority.”
Shingeo Shingo
This, in my humble opinion, is something extremely important. Many get stuck in the money-saving aspect of lean, and it is least important purpose. Spending your energy on the other purposes will doubtless get you the savings over time.
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“If you are not willing to learn, no one can help you. If you are determined to learn, no one can stop you.”
– Zig Ziglar
“It ain’t what you don’t know that gets you into trouble. It’s what you know for sure that just ain’t so.”
– Mark Twain
