Important that we understand the difference.
Leaders at all levels are responsible for leading improvement commensurate with their scope & span of control.
It makes little sense for a front line Team Leader to hunt the Great White Whale of System Kaizen.
Similarly, it's suboptimal for a Senior Vice-President to focus her attention on solely Point Kaizen - when she should be looking for Moby Dick.
(Caveat: she certainly needs to sponsor, motivate & check Point & Flow kaizen in her zone.)
So here are some working definitions of Point, Flow & System improvement.
Point Improvement
- improvement in a point in the value stream, e.g.
- Machine changeover,
- Material handling
- Quality - (e.g. damaged to packaging, contamination)
- Ergonomics
- Standardized work - lack of, wrong content/sequence/timing etc.
Flow Improvement
- improvement in several points in the value stream - that lead to an overall VS improvement (e.g. in Lead time, throughput, quality, inventory turns)
- Flow improvement comprises several point improvements
- A + B + C + D = overall VS improvement, where A, B, C & D might be
- Machine changeover,
- Material handling
- Quality - (e.g. damaged to packaging, contamination)
- Ergonomics
- Standardized work - lack of, wrong content/sequence/timing
System Improvement
- Entails continuing to ask Why until we uncover systemic causes to recurrent problems
- Usually entails macro systems around Man, Machine, Methods, Materials
- Can also entail core business processes - e.g. Budgeting, Forecasting, Info systems etc.
Happy fishing,
Pascal
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