Yazaki is a leading automotive manufacturer employing 1,400 people at their North American headquarters. The North American leadership faced the challenge of a hiring freeze from the headquarters in Japan while the business volume and staff workload was increasing. They chose kaizen as a way to help them do more with the existing resources.

The initial assessment identified that factory operations were very lean and efficient yet the back office functions were not. The factories were being held back by less agile North American HQ support functions. The Kaizen consultants helped to create alignment on both internal and external customer focus, using lean process redesign to achieve agreed customer service levels.

A leadership steering committee was formed to sponsor a lean transformation in the back office processes. A team of 3 internal Kaizen Managers were trained and certified. Consultants from Kaizen mentored the internal consultants over a period of 6 months through lean projects while also coaching executives on how to support daily improvement activities by teams.

Results

33% reduction in production parts approval processing (PPAP) time

74% reduction in accounts payable processing time

81% reduction in software installation service request wait time

68% reduction in time spent on processing defect reports

6 to 1 return on investment delivered on consulting engagement