Lean Events or Kaizen Blitzes
STAT-A-MATRIX can help you apply Lean in your organization through the implementation of special Lean projects called Lean events or kaizen blitzes. These are typically short-term projects with a specific objective toward improving a process. They might also be called breakthrough kaizen, gemba kaizen, or system kaizen.
According to Wikipedia, the term kaizen is a Japanese word for “improvement.” The term has been adopted into English and refers to a philosophy or practices focusing on continuous improvement in manufacturing activities, business activities, and even life activities, depending on interpretation and usage.
When used in the business sense and applied to the workplace, kaizen typically refers to activities that continually improve all functions of a business, from manufacturing to management and from the CEO to the assembly line workers. By improving standardized activities and processes, kaizen aims to eliminate waste. The concept of kaizen was first implemented in several Japanese businesses during that country's recovery after World War II and has since spread to businesses throughout the world.
A typical kaizen event lasts from 4 to 10 days, during which a team of individuals is focused on a narrow, specific improvement. The event is usually driven by top management, and the improvement activities normally start with an analysis of how a particular work process or operation performs. Problems are identified for a quick fix, such as rapid improvement in quality, cost, or timeliness through elimination of waste. We utilize our Lean pathway model to help drive the scope and to choose the appropriate Lean approach(es) to use during the event.
