Why even bother with Continuous Improvement?

In the spring of 2021, on the second and fourth Wednesdays of the month, Kaas Tailored is hosting a series on Problem Solving & Continuous Improvement. To register to join in on the fun, please go here. What is a system? Before talking about Improvement Systems, let’s make sure we are talking about the same […]

How Yesterday Informs Tomorrow

At Kaas Tailored we use the “today, tomorrow, day-after-tomorrow” thinking model to help us with the idea of time frame. We talk a lot about today, tomorrow, and day-after-tomorrow. But yesterday actually informs it all.

What Elements Should You Include in Your Visual Management System?

How do you know what elements you should make visual? You have to be very selective. The first part is deciding who’s the customer. A lot of times when people make things, it’s for 10 different customers so the whole thing gets watered down. But choosing one customer helps us set clear constraints and contrasts.

How Kaas Tailored Uses Visual Management Tools

In the fall of 2020, Kaas Tailored hosted a series of Zoom calls unpacking our Daily Management System (DMS). Each month we focused on a different element of our DMS, starting with strategy, then discussing daily huddles, then talking about Visual Management Systems (VMS), and ending with Leader Standard Work. In this post, we look […]

How Visual Management Systems Help Reduce Waste

One of the advantages of having such a diverse workgroup as we have at our company (with over 14 languages spoken in our factory) is that Kaas has to be thinking of ways that we can allow people to know the truth so that they can move freely without waste.

How Kaas Tailored Runs Daily Huddles

At Kaas Tailored, we have various huddles that meet daily to walk through our “information factory.” There are a variety of tools to choose from to help organize daily huddles, but we use Trello and Zoom. I participate in a huddle every day at 7:30. We all call in from wherever we are in the world. When I say “we all,” I mean all the responsible parties over our entire organization. We could not have successful huddles if we left out a section of our organization. So there are 11 leaders on the call every day.