Advanced Kaizen Seminar Kitwe 18-09-2018

Dear Friends , It was a pleasure meeting you all today at Moba Hotel in Kitwe for the Advanced Kaizen Seminar (18th September 2018)

As promised please find link for the presentation that I made today . Should you have any doubts please do not hesitate to write to me with the subject header [Kaizen Club ] .

https://www.dropbox.com/s/iwhj4l3hgrjjhjt/Advanced%20Kaizen%20Seminar%20Kitwe%20KJ%20Presentation%2018092018.pdf?dl=0


Happy learning !

Krishnan Jagadheeswaran (KJ)
Specialised Systems Limited
Kaizen Club of Zambia

Reflections on Excellence

"Good morning , Suzuki San , how have you been "asked Miss P when she noticed him walking through the door .

" I am fine , Miss P , how about you . Today I have want to tell something that is not going to make you happy . I am really surprised why you and many others did not attend the Learning series on WHAT IS QUALITY conducted by my good friend KJ on the 19th May . Those who attended enjoyed the program and it gave a new outlook on the understanding of Quality .

I know what you will tell . That you were busy and though you tried you couldnt make it . I cant accept that Miss P . You must know that these are great opportunities for enhancing your knowledge levels , and all that you are going to spend is just 2 hours purposefully "

Miss P hung her head in shame . "I know Suzuki San , I dont have any reasons , I was trying to complete some work that I had and felt that I was too busy . But I do realise that when we have so much TIME to spend on trivialities and gossip etc... for a purposeful learning , we can always afford time . I will tell my apologies to KJ and ensure that I attend the programs in future without giving any reasons "

Suzuki San continued " I am not surprised by this lame reasoning , Miss P . I will see if I can ask KJ to conduct this program again in the near future . Atleast you go and tell others in the Industry to take advantage of this .

Have you heard of the concept of 3 BOX MODEL by Vijay Govindarajan . "

Miss P innocently asked " No , Suzuki San , is it something related to packaging ?"

Suzuki San who was so tensed up till now , burst out laughing .
"Miss P , you made me laugh now . I was so angry with you when I walked in . This is a MANAGEMENT CONCEPT proposed by a management guru called Vijay Govindarajan .

Prof.Vijay says that most of the Organizations are very myopic ( Senior management ) . They look at handling their current chores and responsibilities as a major task and invariably lost out on the future .

The 3 BOX MODEL is as follows .

BOX 1 - MANAGE THE PRESENT

Prof.Vijay says the present is something you will have to just manage . There may be very little control on what large changes you can achieve to give new directions to what is happening currently .

BOX 2 - SELECTIVELY FORGET THE PAST

Not all things that happened in the past are good or bad . However , certain mistakes and bad happenings need to be forgotten while retaining the ones that will be useful .

I will make an analogy of  driving a car . Just imagine if one keeps looking only at the rear view mirror and driving . Will he/she be able to drive forward . But at the same time do you drive only looking in front . No . We also keep looking at the rear view mirror ocassionally .

So the idea behind this is that , the good things of the past should be a reference only .

BOX 3 - CREATE THE FUTURE

You need to know where you want to be say 10 years from now . And to be WHAT YOU WANT TO BE 10 YEARS FROM NOW , there is no point in starting to act after 10 years , but NOW .

To be what you want to be in 10 years from now , you have to start planning and acting right now .

The moral of this concept is that and what I observed is that , WHAT KJ IS TRYING TO DISSEMINATE IN TERMS OF KNOWLEDGE IS NOT FOR YOU TO MANAGE THE PRESENT , BUT FOR YOU TO PREPARE YOURSELF TO CREATE THE FUTURE " .

So , stop giving stories like you were trying to finish some job , manage the present and all that , Miss P and look at using these opportunities so that you can be in better positions in the future . "

Miss P was almost in tears . "Suzuki San , I now understand fully what you conveyed . Yes , I do want to be a Managing Director in 10 years from , and I now realise that to be that in 10 years , unless I start using these opportunities now , I can never think of nearing such positions . So I am going to do one thing now .

I will selectively forget the past , my habit of saying that I was busy , and will look forward to attending KJ's next Learning series . Thanks a Lot , Suzuki San for this "

Suzuki San smiled . " you see , you got the concept right .

Now , I want tell you something . My other friend Mr.Eric Miller is in Zambia . He is a Management Consultant and a Lean Expert . He has done consultancy in many organisations in the Europe and has also worked as a Professor .

He is currently in Zambia and is volunteering his services for the Kaizen Institute of Zambia . I met him the other day and Eric sent me an article on Reflections of Excellence , which I felt will be immensely useful to all and hence have asked KJ to post it in the blog . Eric wishes to thank the authors Keith Mobley and agency Life Cycle Engineering for this article . Please read them and benefit . If you have any queries on lean , please email Eric on millereric450@gmail.com

Copy paste link or Click on the link details below :

https://www.dropbox.com/s/66cw9iiv4e7wrm4/Reflections-15-Laws-for-Continuous-Improvement%20May%202016.pdf?dl=0

Ok, Miss P , I am running late for a meeting now , Next week I will share about the Gemba program that happened in Sakiza Spinning in  Kitwe by the Kaizen Club of Zambia - Copperbelt Chapter "

Note 1 : Suzuki San , Miss P and her company are characters  developed by KJ and has no relevance to any particular person / processes/situation    . All mention are purely for illustration purpose of the central theme of the case and are personal opinions unless cited and shall have no recourse of consequences to author . Readers can use their practical inputs to alter any of the material that may be published . Readers are invited to express their views on this continuing case study series .

Note 2: Some of the readers have mentioned that they are unable to place their comments . Please click on the "No comments"  link , and make your comments and if you do not have any prior registration , you can choose anonymous and feel free to give details or not , though it will be nice if we can have your name details in the comments .

Learning Series 2 : CUSTOMER SERVICE GAP ANALYSIS

Good morning , Suzuki San

Suzuki San turned around and found Miss P standing . "Miss P , what a surprise , how come you are in Lusaka "

Miss P says " Sorry to barge in Suzuki San , I couldn't get through on your phone , I am here to participate for the Annual Kaizen Conference on the 3rd and 4th November . I need to make some intense preparation on our Kaizen activities and have brought all information .  I heard KJ is organising a Learning session on 22nd Oct to explain on the Seven QC tools , and I wanted to attend that as well . I want to know something about Pareto analysis and a few other tools "

"Oh , I see. You are welcome to Lusaka , Miss P . I also heard of the meeting . It is unfortunate that we are not able to have these sessions in the Copperbelt , and I hope , we will start something there soon . By the way , do you know that KJ's second Learning series on Customer Service Gap Analysis was a huge success . The participants very intently learnt about the various service gaps that affect Customer satisfaction and went back with a wealth of knowledge . See these pictures  ,Miss P "

Miss P exclaims , "Wow , Suzuki San I would have loved to participate in these learning series . I also am wondering why so many companies in Lusaka are not able to send their staff for these programs . It would be a great opportunity to understand concepts and then bridge to practice "

Suzuki San sighed " Yes , rightly said , Knowledge will never let one down , It is always positive and we are pushing hard for the Top management of Lusaka Industry to understand that , and develop their staff to learn more and more .  One goodness about all this is that , one need not feel that they have missed out on anything . All that they have to do is to mail KJ to conduct another session , and knowing KJ  he will certainly help out .

Miss P , I am looking at the Kaizen Conference with great enthusiasm  . I really dont know how many of the participants are going to come with presentations that are beyond 5S , but we have to gradually move beyond that and start using the 7QC tools and real projects . "

"Understood , Suzuki San . Thanks for your time , Will update you after attending KJ's learning series on Thursday ."

"Where is it being held , by the way Miss P "

"I think owing to paucity of time to arrange with KIZ , KJ plans to have it in his organisation only , Specialised Systems Limited on Mwembeshi road , Light industrial area . Will you be coming , Suzuki San "

"Let me see , Miss P , I have to check on my diary and will certainly come if time permits. Best wishes "


Note 1 : Suzuki San , Miss P and her company are characters  developed by KJ and has no relevance to any particular person / processes/situation    . All mention are purely for illustration purpose of the central theme of the case and are personal opinions unless cited and shall have no recourse of consequences to author . Readers can use their practical inputs to alter any of the material that may be published . Readers are invited to express their views on this continuing case study series .

Note 2: Some of the readers have mentioned that they are unable to place their comments . Please click on the "No comments"  link , and make your comments and if you do not have any prior registration , you can choose anonymous and feel free to give details or not , though it will be nice if we can have your name details in the comments .

Learning Series 1 - Kaizen Starts with 5S and Red tagging

On behalf of the Kaizen Club of Zambia , I am pleased to inform you that the First Kaizen Learning series on Thursday evening (17/9) at 17:00 hrs was successful . We had participants from a few organisations , though many who confirmed their participation did not turn up .

The participants were elated at the new knowledge of the PDCA cycle and assured that this is the way forward for Zambia , to embrace PDCA in every walk of life . They appreciated the red tagging principles and the need to eliminate Muda, Muri and Mura .

I , being the first time , am uploading the presentation for the benefit of the mailer members .

 LEARNING SERIES 1 : KAIZEN STARTS WITH 5S & RED TAGGING

As is natural , please note that the readers may not understand a point or two , as much would be discussed during a presentation and hence we urge participation  . Please feel free to mail me on kj@specialised.com.zm for any doubts .

I earnestly request the top management of the organisations to permit your staff who wish to attend these programs at 16:30 hrs on the event days ( once a fortnight , Thursday evenings)  . We assure you that the time is well invested .

The upcoming event , namely the Learning Series -2 of the Kaizen Club of Zambia is a presentation and knowledge sharing on " CUSTOMER SERVICE GAP ANALYSIS" . Many a time , we all know that even if we feel we have provided good service , the customer is dissatisfied . This session will explain what are the gaps that causes such customer dissatisfaction and what can be done about it .

INVITATION TO LEARNING SERIES 2: CUSTOMER SERVICE GAP ANALYSIS

This should be one of the most desired training for any organisation that values its customers , and I wish to have more participation for this program .

SPREAD THE KAIZEN WORD ....

Yours in Kaizen Service

KJ

Episode 7 : Kaizen in Hotel Industry

"Hello , Miss P Good morning and how are you " a voice on Miss P's phone asked

Miss P was startled for a moment and exclaimed " Good morning , Suzuki San is that you , What happened to you for so long and I almost broke down " She was literally in tears while speaking . Miss P , Suzuki San continued , Please see my mail now"  and hung the phone .

The mail reads

" Miss P , I have been travelling continuously and had little access to internet and time to call you , Miss P , anyway I am now back in action . I had been to India with my good friend KJ to a place called Trichy in Southern India and the state of Tamil Nadu . While I was travelling through the town , I found this 4 star Hotel but something on the front , a banner caught my eyes .

With great surprise , we both barged into the Hotel and requested to be connected to their Director , Mr.Rathnakumar who with great enthusiasm accepted to meet us .

We asked him how he came about Kaizen and the progress and I am producing an excerpt of what he told .

Mr. Rathnakumar says , " We have been implementing Kaizen for the past two years now . I wanted to bring up the Service standards in the Hotel and offer a delightful experience to my customers . I found Kaizen being practiced in a manufacturing company in a city called Coimbatore , which is 300 kms from Trichy .

I was wondering if Kaizen and 5S tools will work in a Hotel Industry but was encouraged to try out . We started in a small way and I engaged a consultant to help us through defining 5S and red tagging methodologies to my staff .

The Initial reaction was an expected resistance . What is in it for me . But there were quite a good number of staff who eagerly were willing to participate with a thinking , whether there is anything to gain or not , atleast there is nothing to lose .

So I told my staff whoever is interested to participate can do so , and whoever is not , its fine .

After we started the program , our focus was on 5S and we have done a great deal of reducing Muda in workplace . We conduct regular sessions and reward in a small way those who achieve certain milestones .

I also encouraged my staff to make little mistakes and learn from them . I am fully OK for my staff to make a mistake as long as it is not intentional .

Now with these changes , which were immediately visible to everyone , other members who initially shied away also joined . Now we have all our members participating in the Kaizen promotion and are very enthusiastic in continuously improving our standards .

We face lots of challenges , Unlike any other institution , the Hotel Industry is 24 x 7 , meaning we have to be on our toes servicing customers through out the day and night . Also the business is seasonal , meaning the work load will be huge during season time and most of the staff would tend to avail their vacation during lean season .

But we have managed to have our meetings during shift changes and meticulously planning our schedule so as to have our Kaizen meetings regularly .

I am really passionate about implementing Kaizen and develop more and be an example and leader in the Hotel industry . We have a lot of 5 and 7 star hotels in India and my dream is to surpass those standards of service by Kaizen implementation .

And I know that my business will grow exponentially as a consequence of Kaizen implementation , Thanks for listening to me "

We were amazed on the wonders Kaizen can do in any field of business one is in , and we thanked Mr.Rathnakumar profusely for his time and returned .



More Kaizen stories in coming weeks , Bye till then Miss P .

Episode 4 : Suzuki San continues with 5S

"Good afternoon , Suzuki San . I enjoyed the material on 5S that you gave last week . You said that you will give the Red tag format this week " said Miss P with expectations to learn more in her eyes . 

Suzuki San smiled and said , " yes , I thought you will forget . I have asked my friend Mr.KJ to upload it in a drop box so that any one can download the excel sheet on red paper and can use . The link is at the end of the blog page he will publish .

As the name goes , if you are not able to get a red sheet , you can use any color though generally Red color paper is used , so its called as the red tag. Mr.KJ has offered to give a couple of pictures in his organisation where they have red tagged and then taken action .

You can see that the Kaizen team at Specialised Systems  has spared no one , and has red tagged KJ's room as well . That is the beauty of Kaizen power , Miss P , the ability to accept constructive criticism and improve continuously .

Well , having said that , there are a few cardinal rules a Kaizen 5S team must know and follow " paused Suzuki San .

Miss P and her team , very eagerly kept looking at him wondering what he will tell next .

Suzuki San continued

" 1. You must be ruthless in your red tagging activity . Whatever is seen in a place without use for more than say 3 months , must be red tagged . Depending on the purpose , each company is free to decide this duration of non use , though .

2. You will notice that some of the inventory may be lying for years together , every one seeing it every day and doing nothing .

3. There was this company which had a successful red tag session happen , and then removed them due to an audit that was to happen , and again red tagged after the audit . This is not acceptable .

4. Yellow tag mess - A company decided to yellow tag , instead of red tag with the idea of those items as doubtful necessity , and when the exercise was completed , they found that all the items were yellow tagged . Moral is that there is no half way between red tagging and an item being doubtful of use . It should be mercilessly red tagged if not used .

5. Another company did a red tagging exercise and made adhesive red tag stickers at a cost of K 5 per sticker . One of the Kaizen members promptly red tagged the sticker bunch itself . Moral is that you must be very conservative in such a Kaizen exercise .

6.  And last but not the least , my friends DO NOT RED TAG PEOPLE , UNLESS YOU WANT TO BE RED TAGGED YOURSELF "

Every one burst out laughing at this , and Miss P was almost on tears with joy hearing these inputs . " Suzuki San , We cant thank you enough for these valuable inputs . Now I begin to understand , what you meant by being Excellent by doing simple things in practice , WoW , this is great and we cant wait to implement "

Suzuki San said humbly " You are welcome , I am also asking KJ to publish in his blog a presentation that he gave to his staff on these rules of 5S and red tagging . But that will be next week , See you then "

RED TAG SAMPLE LINK AS EXPLAINED BY SUZUKI SAN : 

This will open in a new window when you click Download at the right side top

https://www.dropbox.com/s/w9vrolvpuxznbgy/5S%20Red%20Tag%20template%20SSL.xls?dl=0


The Excel file has 3 red tag cards to fit an A4 sheet, and needs to be cut carefully to create 3 red tags .

Note 1 : The case study is developed by KJ and has no relevance to any particular processes/situation  that may be followed in the concerned industry , All names are fictitious and do not represent any individual or organisation . All mention are purely for illustration purpose of the central theme of the case and are personal opinions unless cited and shall have no recourse of consequences to author . Readers can use their practical inputs to alter any of the material that may be published . Readers are invited to express their views on this continuing case study series .

Note 2: Some of the readers have mentioned that they are unable to place their comments . Please click on the "No comments"  link , and make your comments and if you do not have any prior registration , you can choose anonymous and feel free to give details or not , though it will be nice if we can have your name details in the comments .

Miss P and Kaizen – episode 2

“Good morning Suzuki San “ , Miss P said , “what a surprise I thought you would return back from Lusaka after a few weeks only “

Suzuki San responded “ Good morning , Miss P , I was attending a Kaizen training program in Lusaka this week , and thought I will do some article on Kaizen success stories from a few companies, but since they were busy with office , I thought I better use my time visit here “ 

“Last week you mentioned about six sigma ,Suzuki San .Can you tell something about it “ 

“ Before we talk of six sigma , I want to ask you a question “ Suzuki San continued “ What do Excellent companies do “

Miss P thought for a few seconds before responding “ I presume they do high end brain storming , Develop complicate strategies , have a huge capital budget layout to execute their expansion plans , something like this … “ 

“May be , Miss P  , but do you know that Excellent companies work very hard to ensure basic things are done properly and consistently ¹   “ 

“Can you elaborate further Suzuki San “ 

“ Yes , for example , may I ask you what time your work starts and what time you reach to office every morning “ 

“ Well , my work starts at 08:00 hrs in the morning , and I generally reach between 7:55 to 8:00 , and maybe some days I may come in by 08:10 hrs “ 

“ Good , but Miss .P don’t you feel that 08:00hrs is the start of work and not the time you are expected to arrive in office “ 

A confused Miss P “ yes, very true  , I have never actually thought about this “ 

Suzuki San asked “ Miss P , do you fly in aircraft frequently “ . 

“ Yes , I do , when I go for meetings in Johanesburg or for trainings , why do you ask that , Suzuki San” 

“ Have you ever reached the airport 5 minutes before the aircraft is to depart , Miss P “ 

“ Oh , I see the point , Suzuki San “ Miss P said smilingly “ you are pointing out , when we can exercise discipline when we want to achieve something , why show a different attitude in work “ 

“Exactly , the first step to Kaizen and doing simple things right is to start arriving atleast 15-20 minutes before , and start your work at 08:00 hrs , Do you agree to that “ 

Suzuki San continued “ what happens generally is that we all tend to arrive at around 08:00 hrs , then take some time to settle down , and by the time one starts working , its already 08:30 hrs . As an individual , it may or may not be ok , but collectively , if you have 50 staff ,  we lose 50no.s x 0.5 hrs = 25 man hours per day already “ 

Miss P cheerfully added “ and if this time were saved , it will eventually increase productivity over a period of time . Wow , what a simple thing and I just never even thought about it , Thanks a lot Suzuki San for pointing this out , I will share with my team immediately  , what else do you think can we improve up on “ 

Suzuki San said “ I am happy that you got the point so fast , Miss P . This is suffice  for this week , I shall share my experiences with my friend KJ who publishes a Kaizen blog , so that many more Kaizen club members can read and benefit . In the coming weeks , we will gradually discuss more serious issues on continuous improvement , See you later then “ 

“ Thanks Suzuki San . Have a great weekend “

*¹  - In search of excellence , Tom Peters & Robert Waterman Jr.

Note: The case study is developed by KJ and has no relevance to any particular processes/situation  that may be followed in the concerned industry , All names are fictitious and do not represent any individual or organisation . All mention are purely for illustration purpose of the central theme of the case and are personal opinions unless cited and shall have no recourse of consequences to author . Readers are invited to express their views on this continuing case study series .