A few years back, I attended a talk by the CEO of a major manufacturing company. He shared with us that his company had conducted 600+ Kaizen events in the previous 3 years. Unfortunately, at the end of that time, when he looked at the P&L, it was hard to see where all of that effort went.
That’s what I mean when I talk about conducting Kaizen through BSing and hoping. Instead of focusing on the number of Kaizen events, your first goal should be to make sure you are applying a proven methodology, and that you can measure the results with hard data.
Too often I see factories doing Kaizen events just for the sake of doing Kaizen. While you will see improvements this way, there’s a massive waste of potential.
What I am proposing is a shift in the way you think about Kaizen events.