A kaizen event is a highly-focused, action-oriented, improvement activity where cross-functional teams take immediate action to improve specific processes or areas.

Typically, a kaizen event is a week long session and produce immediate results to give you an idea of how world class companies operate.

The first morning the team is presented a problem and challenged with a substantial target improvement (like a 50 % improvement).  A short training session is conducted going over lean basics and any topic or skills specific to the problem.  Then the Kaizen Team goes to gemba to observe and understand the current condition.  The majority of the week is all out, hands-on problem solving, brainstorming and experimentation to come up with the best solution to reach the improvement target level.  At the end of the week, the Kaizen Team presents a report out to their management telling them the story of the the weeks activities with all their kaizen implemented and results followed by a celebration of the success.

Why use Kaizen Events? 

We use kaizen events to provide a “learning laboratory” during which we learn to think differently about solving problems.

Nobody says that change will be easy for anyone.  And nobody says that kaizen does not involve change.  It can produce some of the most radical change in the way we do our jobs than has been seen in many years.

 Main Purpose

A kaizen more than opportunity to improve, it is also an opportunity to learn.  In a kaizen event you can gain the knowledge and understanding of tool to implement kaizen.

 If this sounds like an exciting way to learn about Lean Principles, contact us.