Lean Kaizen Tools

Kaizen Event Planning templates (sometimes spelled "kaizan, "kaisan", or "kaisen")

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tools

Kaizen Tools

to plan your next Lean Kaizen Event

Microsoft Office templates for Kaizen Event Planning and Leadership

Kaizen Event Planning

Follow the instructions for how to launch any team for continuous improvement.

Notice that you get most of those event planning templates as free shareware when you download your free trial.

You will get the Kaizen Team Roles, Kaizen Agenda, and many others when you own your license.

Kaizen Event Checklist

When the big wigs travel in from out of town to participate you continuous improvement event,

and that spotlight shines bright and hot on your face,

you're going to truly appreciate having a field-proven Kaizen Event Checklist to thoroughly prepare to get the best results from your team's intensive time spent together.

Your Kaizen Checklist will help you avoid embarrassing and costly oversights as you prepare to launch your kaizen team.

Kaizen Agenda template

After getting your Team Charter approved, begin fleshing out the details of your Kaizen Agenda.

Email your Kaizen Agenda along with your Team Charter to every person identified on the Communication Plan sheet in your Kaizen Planning Checklist.

Use your Agenda to stay on track to complete everything that needs to be done during your Kaizen Event.

The Event Coordinator should bring it to the Facilitator's attention if the group falls significantly behind schedule.

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Kaizen Event Leadership

Planning is good. Successful execution is even better.

Caution: If you have never led a Kaizen Event, don't do it alone.
You should co-lead several events under the mentoring of an experienced leader before stepping into the spotlight to serve as the primary leader or facilitator.

Kaizen PowerPoints

Depending on the purpose and scope of your Team Charter,you could use any number of process improvement tools.

Tip: Use your Tool Selection Matrix

In every continuous improvement event, you will always use your Kaizen PowerPoint template:

• The Event Presentation of Results

  to quickly prepare your daily report-out presentations
  to you present to your executives and stakeholders
  at the end of each day of your event

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Kaizen Continuous Improvement

Your goal is to complete as much as possible during your 1-5 day event.

You will almost never reach that ideal.

Kaizen Newspaper Action List

Use your Event Action List template (eventAction.xlsx) to collect issues and ideas that arise before, during, and in the days immediately following an Event, and to assign responsibilities and deadlines to finish up all loose ends in the days immediately following an Event

Some Event Leaders prefer to use the To Do List template

Both of these templates come with your free trial

Potential Future Improvements Ideas Parking Lot

Step 1) Decide who will author this document

There might be one document author, or you might designate your entire Continuous Improvement Steering Team as the author, and store this in a folder with write permissions for all possible shared document authors.

Step 2) Collect ideas for potential improvements

Every Continuous Improvement Team Leader should be trained to collect ideas for potential improvements, and ensure that all ideas are recorded here.

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And more Kaizen Tools

Unlike a hodge podge of non-standardized templates collected from perhaps forgotten consultants, and "free" Internet downloads, and templates created from employees that eventually move on (and now who's going to support them?)

Once you learn how to find help and training for any Systems2win template, you know how to find help and training for every Systems2win template.

Your Systems2win templates empower your leaders
with an entire suite of templates to measure results (and get results)

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Training

Additional relevant training

The Sample and Help sheets of every template always contain training relevant to THAT template

• New User Training: What every user should know to use any Systems2win template
• How to Personalize your Systems2win templates
• Support & Training home page
• Language Translations

  Translations available for immediate delivery include Spanish, Portuguese, German, French, and Chinese

• Lean Training (home page)
• Kaizen vs. other Lean Management Systems
• How to launch a Continuous Improvement Team
• Training Matrix to validate learning
• Why job promises are essential for continuous improvement
• Lean Visual Management Systems

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why

The Kaizen Method — why do it?

The Kaizen method is quite simply the fastest, most field-proven way to:

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Event

What is a Kaizen Event?

An intensive burst of business process improvement

usually involving...

1) Preparation by the Event Leaders

2) Anywhere from a half day to a 5-day Kaizen Event

where representatives from every group of stakeholders devote undivided attention to improving one business process with clearly defined boundaries.

Examples of clearly-defined improvement objectives might include:

• Reduce costs by 20%
• Reduce process cycle time by 50%
• Reduce scrap by 80%

(Little 5% improvements are usually not worth the attention of a kaizen event. You are looking for BIG improvements!)

3) The day after your Lean Kaizen Event

• When the new process is expected to actually be used!
• There are usually a few loose ends to clean up

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principles

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first

Your First Kaizen Event

Criteria for selecting your first few processes to improve

Suggested focus for first Kaizen Events

The ideal process for a first kaizen event...

• Is guaranteed to succeed
• Enjoys the enthusiasm of everyone involved — especially middle management
• Is a bottleneck that will break open dramatic increased productivity for the entire value stream
• Has obvious potential for dramatic improvement
• Is an easy project — a confidence builder
• Is pretty much a self-contained process that isn't influenced greatly by outside forces
• Involves a physical product (rather than information or management policy issues that can be kaizened later)
• Doesn't require computer programming or any technology that can't be completed in 3 days
• Doesn't contain a "monument" that can't easily and inexpensively be replaced in 3 days
• Won't require exceptional involvement of outside support (e.g. riggers, maintenance, IT...)
• Won't cost very much money
• Ideally involves a product that can be made with a cell with fewer than a dozen operators
• Ideally involves a product with medium to high volume
• Is a stable, repeatable process that isn't plagued with equipment downtime or yield issues
• Has clearly defined and easily understood performance measures
• Is a simple process that is well-known and/or easily understood by everyone
• Can be copied and used in other areas
• Is highly visible

  Exception: if top management isn't fully on board yet, then sometimes a 'stealth kaizen' can be the best way to prove the concept

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Reading

Suggested Reading and Resources for

Kaizen Tools and Event Planning

• The Kaizen Event Planning, by Karen Martin and Mike Osterling
• Kaizen Event Fieldbook, by Mark Hamel
• The Kaizen Blitz, by Anthony Laraia
• The Lean Pocket Handbook for Kaizen Events, by Don Tapping
• Creating Continuous Flow, by Mike Rother and Rick Harris

More Suggested Reading

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