In Lean, there is plenty of talk about pretty diagrams, data, charts, etc. But at the end of the day, Taiichi Ohno was concerned more with actual changes – he always emphasized that Lean was practice over theory. To help us focus on making actual improvements to our process, one template that can help is the Kaizen Newspaper.
In my Lean training, I’ve spent a lot of time in both System Kaizen and Point Kaizen. But, one element of Point Kaizen that I’ve especially enjoyed is what I’ve come to call Daily Kaizen. But, regardless of the type of Kaizen you are running, keep in mind that classifications of Kaizen really do not matter. The most important item to remember is that Kaizen should be everyday and the most important Kaizen is what you are doing today – this moment – right now. But, if you’re still interested in classifying the types of Kaizen, go read about them here.
So, let me get back to the Kaizen Newspaper and Daily Kaizen.
The Kaizen Newspaper is really designed to help us in implementing many, many, small daily improvements. The template has a few items to help us do just that:
- The Problem or Opportunity
- Who owns it?
- The Root Cause(s)
- The Countermeasure(s)
- Estimated Completion Date
- The Status
- and the Actual Completion Date
The cool thing about Daily Kaizen and the Kaizen Newspaper is that is can be quick to do and implement immediately. Check this actual Daily Kaizen sheet from one company I was involved with:
And the way the above would work is that during daily standup, the team leader would go through the daily kaizen’s that happened the previous shift. Simple, yet it works.
Go download your free Kaizen Newspaper template by clicking on the button below.
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