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Waste Categories and
9
Wastes To Be
Eliminated
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Work-in-process. Stocking
items not immediately needed
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Quality. Producing defective products.
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Facilities. Having
idle machinery and breakdowns, taking too long for setup.
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Expenses. Overinvesting for required output.
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Indirect labor. Excess
personnel due to bad indirect labor system.
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Talent. Employing people for jobs that can be mechanized or assigned to
less skilled people. -
Motion. Not
working according to the best work standards. -
Product Design. Producing products with more functions than necessary. -
New-product
run-up. Making a
slow start in stabilizing the production of a
new product.
In some Canon plants, the foremen are
told to set aside the half-hour as
Kaizen time – time to do nothing but thinking improvement in the
workshop. The foremen use this period to identify problems and work
on Kaizen programs. Factories are advised not to hold meetings
during this 30-minute period, and foremen should not even answer the
telephone then.
6 Guidelines of the Canon's Suggestion
System
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Always show a positive response to suggestions for improvement.
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Help workers to write easily and give them helpful suggestions about
their work.
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Try to identify even the slightest inconvenience for the workers.
(This requires very good superior-subordinate communication.)
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Make the target very clear. Example: How many suggestions do we need
this month? Which area (quality, delivery, manpower, etc.) do we
need to work on now?
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Use competition and games to arouse interest, such as displaying
individual achievement charts.
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Implement accepted suggestions as soon as possible. Give awards
before payday.
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