Strategic KAIZEN™: Using Flow, Synchronization, and Leveling [FSL™] Assessment to Measure and Strengthen Operational Performance

Strategic KAIZEN™: Using Flow, Synchronization, and Leveling [FSL™] Assessment to Measure and Strengthen Operational Performance

by Masaaki Imai
Released June 2021
Publisher(s): McGraw-Hill
ISBN: 9781260143843

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Book description

Transform your company’s critical operations—and its destiny—through a powerful kaizen-focused strategy designed for 21st century efficiency

A pioneer of the operational excellence movement that continues to transform businesses across the world, Masaaki Imai takes you to the next step of continuous improvement—developing an overall strategy for measuring your company’s operational performance and improving processes in ways that boost efficiency and gain competitiveness.

In Strategic KAIZEN™, Imai walks you through the process of shifting your focus from volume and speed to his revolutionary Flow, Synchronization, and Leveling (FSL™) evaluation—the most effective Lean paradigm available. At the heart of his approach is the concept of flow—ensuring that each work piece flows between processes without interruption and stagnation. This game-changing guide teaches you:

  • The critical importance of assessing corporate performance from both the financial and operational standpoints
  • How to identify basic structures of the ideal production and operating systems
  • Proven ways of implementing FSL to establish where improvements are most needed and build a strategy that takes you to new heights of corporate performance
Certain to be another instant classic from Masaaki Imai, Strategic KAIZEN™ provides an abundance of case studies from companies that have successfully implemented FSL™ and tangible know-how to improve FSL™ status to achieve a lean summit.

Whether you run a business, serve in public service, or practice Lean, this groundbreaking guide provides everything you need to transform your organization—and help lead it to the top of your industry, trade, or business.

Table of contents

  1. Cover
  2. Title Page
  3. Copyright Page
  4. Contents
  5. Foreword
  6. Preface
    1. My First Kaizen Book
    2. My Second Kaizen Book
    3. My Third Kaizen Book
    4. Taiichi Ohno and Myself
    5. KAIZEN™ and FSL™ Trademarks
  7. Acknowledgments
  8. About Kaizen Institute
  9. An Introduction on Flow, Synchronization, and Leveling (FSL)
  10. CHAPTER 1 TODAY’S BUSINESS WORLD
    1. Overcapacity of the Production System
    2. Meeting Shareholders’ Delight Versus Customers’ Delight
    3. Institutions Providing Awards and Certifications
    4. The Achilles’ Heel of Modern Capitalism
    5. Shareholder Delight Versus Customer Satisfaction
    6. Modern Corporate Governance
  11. CHAPTER 2 TRADITIONAL COMPANIES VERSUS LEAN COMPANIES
    1. How to Turn Traditional Companies into Lean Companies
    2. The Traditional Approach
      1. Myth One: Cheaper by the Dozen
      2. Myth Two: Production Scheduling Based on Sales Forecast and Inventory
    3. Fatal Shortcoming and the Curse of Traditional Operations
      1. Excessive Use of Resources
      2. Maintaining Good Quality with Operational Variation (Baratsuki) Control
      3. Quality and Cost
      4. Flexibility to Meet Changing Markets
    4. Triple Functions of a Company
    5. New Product Development
    6. The Case of Masahiro Sakane in Joint-Venture Factories
    7. Mistaken Common Sense Prevails in the Traditional System
    8. Ideal Gemba Operations
      1. Standardization
      2. 5S: Good Housekeeping
      3. Muda Elimination
  12. CHAPTER 3 THE CEO AND THE BOARD
    1. Fixing the Game
    2. Shareholders Versus Stakeholders
    3. Corporate Governance in Japan
    4. Sumitomo Case
    5. Notes
  13. CHAPTER 4 SHAREHOLDERS VERSUS CUSTOMERS
    1. Roger Martin’s Two Stories
    2. Customer Satisfaction and Lean Strategy
      1. Shareholders Versus Stakeholders
      2. Sanford M. Jacoby’s Observation
      3. The Definition of Stakeholder
      4. Stakeholder Thinking: The State of the Art?
      5. My Answer
    3. Notes
  14. CHAPTER 5 THE CASE OF KOA INDUSTRY
    1. Implementation of the KOA Production System (KPS)
    2. Improvement in Physical Distribution and Production Functions in the Gemba
    3. Changes in KOA’s Production System Under KPS
  15. CHAPTER 6 THE CASE OF YOKOMORI MANUFACTURING COMPANY
    1. Consulting for Yokomori Manufacturing Company
      1. Two Conditions for Signing the Agreement
      2. The Aim of the Consultations: Making a Flow of Operations
    2. Introduction of Heijunka and Flow Production
      1. Leveling
    3. Conversion from Job Shop to Flow Shop
      1. 5S and Visual Management
  16. CHAPTER 7 TOYOTA AND OHNO
    1. Changing from Traditional to Lean Operations
    2. How the Toyota Production System (TPS) Was Born
    3. It Happened on the Day after Japan’s Surrender in the Second World War
    4. Multiple Machine Handling
    5. Recessions
    6. Multiple Process Handling
    7. Just-in-Time and Kiichiro Toyoda
    8. Kiichiro’s Experience in the United Kingdom
    9. The Supermarket Approach
    10. Financial Restructuring Versus Operational Restructuring
    11. Ohno’s Visit to the United States
    12. Standard Work
    13. The Customer-Oriented Approach
  17. CHAPTER 8 SAKICHI TOYODA
    1. Youth in the Meiji Restoration Period
    2. International Exposition and First Patents
    3. Toyoda Automated Weaving Company and Jidoka
    4. Sakichi Toyoda’s Legacy
  18. CHAPTER 9 THE GM STORY
    1. Financial Restructuring and Operational Restructuring
    2. Restructuring Process
    3. The Reasons Why Top Management Has Failed to Adopt Lean
  19. CHAPTER 10 MITSUTOSHI SATO’S CASE STUDIES
    1. Sato’s Case Study (1) Toyota’s Miyoshi Plant
    2. Sato’s Case Study (2) Otowa Seisakusho (Tokai Rika Company)
    3. Sato’s Case Study (3) Hino Automobile Company
    4. Sato’s Case Study (4) Toyota Miyoshi Plant
  20. CHAPTER 11 PARTS SEIKOU COMPANY
    1. Kaizen Activities at Parts Seiko
    2. Using the Plant as Showroom
  21. CHAPTER 12 THE CASE OF YAZAKI TENRYU
    1. The Three-Year Project to Build a Flexible Lean System
  22. CHAPTER 13 KOMY, THE FLEXIBLE MIRROR COMPANY: THE WORLD’S SMALLEST COMPANY WITH THE BIGGEST AIMS
    1. Komy Mirror
    2. Aiming at an Agriculture Enterprise
    3. The List of Komy’s Customers
    4. Komy’s Philosophy
    5. The New Encounter
    6. The Start of the Airline Business
    7. The Rest Is History
  23. CHAPTER 14 THE FLOW
    1. The Benefit of the Flow
      1. Minimum Use of Time
      2. Elimination of Muda, Mura, and Muri
      3. Quality Improvement
      4. Behavioral Change
      5. Cultural Change
    2. Entropy on the Shop Floor
    3. Manager’s Responsibility
    4. Making a Smooth, Continual, and Swift Flow
    5. Two Types of Material Flows
      1. The Horizontal Flow
      2. Vertical Flow of Materials in Job-Shop Operations
    6. The Information Flow
      1. Traditional Flow of Information from Upstream to Downstream
      2. Lean Flow of Information from Downstream to Upstream
      3. The Flow of Process Layout
      4. The Flow of Operators’ Body Movement
      5. One-Piece Flow
      6. Requirements Before Introducing One-Piece Flow
      7. Self-Discipline and Attention to Details in the Gemba
      8. Employ Minimum Resources
      9. Inventory
    7. Cross-Functional Management
    8. Us-Versus-Them Syndrome and Stakeholders
  24. CHAPTER 15 FSL, THE NEW CRITERIA TO ASSESS A COMPANY’S LEAN STATUS
    1. FSL Assessment and Audit
      1. Flow
      2. Synchronization (Doukika in Japanese)
      3. Leveling (Heijunka in Japanese)
    2. FSL Assessment and Audit of Lean Operations
      1. Assessing the Company’s Current FSL Status
      2. The Role of the CEO
    3. The Formula to Succeed in Embracing the Lean Strategy
  25. CHAPTER 16 THE FLOW AND TPS
    1. The Essence of TPS
    2. Leveling (Heijunka)
    3. Establishing and Maintaining the Heijunka Sequence
    4. Pulling Work Through the Production Sequence: Kanban
  26. CHAPTER 17 FUJIO CHO’S EXPERIENCE WITH TAIICHI OHNO
    1. Cho’s Other Learnings from OHNO
  27. CHAPTER 18 CONDUCTING THE FSL REVIEWS
    1. Two Types of Business Operations
    2. Comparison Between the Two Systems
    3. The Features of Lean Companies
    4. Major Activities for Conducting FSL
      1. The Checklist for Conducting FSL
      2. People-Related Kaizen Tools
      3. Benchmarking Figures on the Lean Status
      4. Quality-Related Kaizen Tools
      5. Equipment-Related Kaizen Tools
    5. The Checklist for the Gemba Visit
      1. Observation of Operator’s Work
      2. Observation of 5S
      3. Visual Management
      4. Checklist to Observe the Flow Status
    6. Checklist of Gemba Kaizen Diagnosis
      1. Management Tasks
      2. Tools in Building FSL
  28. CHAPTER 19 BUILDING THE LAST FRONTIER, THE LEAN STRATEGY
    1. The Contrast
    2. Reasons Why Lean Introduction Has Failed
    3. One of the Drawbacks of the Lean Introduction
    4. The Lack of Criteria to Assess the Operational System
    5. The Importance of the Lean Strategy
      1. Inventory Management: The Case of Union Carbide
      2. Nipponzaka Tunnel
      3. Triple Calamities
      4. Inventory
      5. Another Feature of the Lean Strategy
      6. Learning by Doing
      7. Dramatic Subjects for the Top Management
      8. Long-Term Journey to Change the Traditional Mindset
      9. Accompanying Taiichi Ohno
      10. This Is the Day of Reckoning
  29. CHAPTER 20 SELECTED SAYINGS OF TAIICHI OHNO
    1. Sayings from Japanese Sources
  30. CHAPTER 21 CALLING FOR FSL ASSESSMENT
    1. Embracing the FSL Strategy
    2. Conducting Review of the Production Gemba
    3. The Reason for the Third Book
  31. Afterword by Euclides Coimbra
  32. Index

Product information

  • Title: Strategic KAIZEN™: Using Flow, Synchronization, and Leveling [FSL™] Assessment to Measure and Strengthen Operational Performance
  • Author(s): Masaaki Imai
  • Release date: June 2021
  • Publisher(s): McGraw-Hill
  • ISBN: 9781260143843