Learn Kaizen | Reduce Waste | Increase Productivity | Blog - Page 2 of 4

How to Reduce Waste by 30% in Your Organization

Today we are going to focus on huddles, a main way that we know and show the truth, and how they relate to our values. The premise of today’s talk was supposed to be “how daily huddles can help organizations achieve flow,” but I am not sure that all of you even want flow. The question I think that most organizations need to start with is, “What is flow, and why should I even care?”

Does Kaas Tailored Have a Strategic Plan Document?

Do we have a strategic plan document? Absolutely not. This is an area where I am super weak. At Kaas Tailored, the reality of our business is that we have everything on the wall, and this is intentional. We use a Visual Management System (VMS). Our Visual Management System is based on one of our values: that we want to know and show the truth. We know that human beings can take in a lot of information through their eyes, so we put our plans on the walls, so our team can know the truth.

How Daily Huddles Help Organizations Achieve Flow

First off, what is a huddle? A huddle is a meeting of all the necessary people in a particular system that happens daily, weekly, or monthly to remove blocks and keep information flowing. It’s sometimes hard to see how people get blocked from creating value or working in flow. Things like the 7 Wastes get in the way of flow. It’s easy to look at the flow of a piece of furniture and see what can block it. It’s harder to identify what stops flow for team members. The whole purpose of a huddle is to ensure that value creation never stops.

How GLDN Uses Strategy in Their DMS

In this post, we’re hearing from special guest Mark Johnson, COO of GLDN, an online direct-to-consumer jewelry company.

How are Employees Involved in Setting Strategy?

At Kaas Tailored, we use several thinking models to communicate our strategy with our employees. Thinking models are tools we’ve adopted to help us make sure we can communicate across a diverse group of people to be able to create meaning. Thinking models help speed up the process of understanding, and they create a shared way of communicating so that everyone understands. At Kaas, we use thinking models like “today, tomorrow, day-after-tomorrow,” KRAF, and the Laws to Outcome model.

How Kaas Tailored Uses Strategy in Their DMS

At Kaas Tailored, when we say strategy, what we mean is starting with who we are trying to become as an organization. It all starts with the question of, “Where are we going? Why are we building this beautiful thing together? Why are we collaborating?”

How Does Strategy Remove Waste?

At Kaas Tailored, when it comes to creating a DMS, the first step in the process is developing your strategy. This means first defining “who we are as a company” and “who we want to become.” Next, it’s important to identify, understand, and choose helpful thinking models so that your team has a shared way of communicating complex ideas that everyone understands. And finally, it’s important to choose the tools you’ll need to get there.

What is Leader Standard Work?

Before diving into Leader Standard Work, let’s quickly define Standard Work. Standard Work is one of the principles of lean manufacturing. Standard Work is the agreed-upon way that a task, process, or system should operate. Within each step, we define the content, sequence, timing, and outcome to be clear on how to achieve repeatable results. So we applied this principle of Standard Work to how we develop leaders and came up with the name Leader Standard Work.

How Many People Should You Have in a Daily Huddle?

The answer is the lowest number of people possible while ensuring work never gets blocked. Another way of saying that is the lowest number of people while ensuring someone can always answer the question, from end-to-end. End-to-end thinking allows you to think of everything from the moment the customer has an idea to the moment the product gets delivered.

How Nordstrom Uses a Daily Management System

In this post, our friend Jamie Bergman, a member of the Continuous Improvement team at Nordstrom, shares how Nordstrom adopted Daily Huddles early on in their journey with Lean and where they are today.