1.

Kaizen
Kaizen Activities *Standardize an operation and activities. *Measure the operation *Gauge measurements against requirements *Innovate to meet requirements and increase productivity *Standardize the new, improved operations *Continue cycle

Elements *Team Working *Personal Discipline *Improved morale *Quality circles *Suggestions for improvements

Benefits *Reduces waste *Improves capabilities *Provide immediate results

'Kaizen' is a Japanese managerial concept which was introduced immediately after the world war II to reform the collapsed economy in Japan. This concept was developed and taught by Homer Sarasohn and Charles Protzman in 1949-50. 'Kai' means change and 'zen' means to become good. So the simpler definition of this concept is change to become good. When we deeply consider, Kaizen is a system of gradual improvement in quality, technology, processes,company culture, productivity, safety and leadership. Elements Team working is essential in 'Kaizen' method. Upper level to lower level employees are working as teams. They are encouraged to actively participate with 'Kaizen' activities by improving the morales and personal disciplines. Each and every employee is included with a quality circle and responsible for the quality of each and every element of the organization. Every employee should introduce suggestions to the organization with the purpose of improving the company performances. Every suggestion is written, shared and implemented. With the 'Kaizen', suggestions are not limited to specific area. It is allowed to do changes where possible if it improves the organizational performances. Most often these suggestions are not for major changes but for small and gradual changes. Kaizen activities Base on those core elements 'Kaizen' practitioners are creating standards and continually improve those standards by providing training, materials and supervision that is needed to the employees. Innovativeness is a critical factor in improving the standards. 'Kaizen' should be continually practised for further performance improvements. Benefits 'Kaizen' reduces waste in areas such as inventory, waiting times, etc. It also improves space utilization, product quality, communication etc. 'Kaizen' also provides immediate results which make ease to motivate the practitioners since it is not touching huge time and capital consuming developments but considering of small, large number of gradual developments.

2. Quality Circles

Organizational Workers

Voluntary participation

Quality circle group members

Guides

*Steering committee *Supervisor Quality circle is a group of employees who are voluntarily participated to identify, analyse and solve work related problems and present their solutions to management in order to improve the performance of the organization, and motivate and enrich the work of employees. Often they are instructed by a supervisor. Quality circle managerial concept was initially introduced by Japan and then it spread through many countries by creating millions of quality circles among millions of organizations. Successful quality circles require high level management commitment and should be a plan of long term development strategy. To create a successful QC group, it requires guidance of a supervisor or QC in other organizational departments who are experienced in human factors, problem solving, basic statistics, solution identification etc. Employee participation and customer orientation is another two factors for the QC successes. Quality circle is consists of few key elements. Base is steering committee which consist of high level management who steer the QC by creating objectives, providing resources, granting, evaluating, feed-backing, etc. A member as a group leader to lead the members. Co-ordinator to undertake the administration. Next element is the supervisor or facilitator as mentioned above paragraphs. 8-12 voluntarily participated employees. How ever this QC organization structure can be changed according to the context. Number of information can be obtained such as management can be aware of problems within the organizations, attitudes among workers, innovative ideas of workers related to the business process. Base on that information management can improve the employee satisfaction by joint decision making, promoting etc. By improving employee satisfaction and communication, employee retention can be established. Overall result of those happenings is the improvement of the organizational performances.

3. Root Cause Analysis

Root cause analysis is a process of resolving an organizational problem by analysing its root cause other than just giving solutions for its symptoms. It is very difficult to identify the root cause for a specific problem since it can be connected with various disciplines either in or outside to the organization. For an effective identification of a root cause, there are principle concepts that can be used. Analysis process should be consisted of a clear objective. Process should be repeatable and results of the analysis should be accurate which means results should not be base on assumptions of an analysts. Analysts can become ambiguous with number of points which seems to be the root cause of the particular problem. To simplify the case there are hundreds of tools that can be used as helping tool to filter the real root cause. As few examples Analysis by predefined problems and their causes, 'Grab Bag' approach on different perspective regarding the same problem, analysis governed by logic rules etc. Let's consider the Root Cause Analysis with a practical example. Assume a financial manager of a garment organization identified that there is a decrement of profits during the last two years. Given below is a root cause analysis.

Profit Minimization

Decrement of product orders

Regular customers are leaving the organization Less customer satisfaction

High rate of labour turn over

Lack of labour power

Delay of service completion

Uncomfortable social background near the employee boarding places

Social misconducts by the drug addicted people around the area

According to the cause flow, if the managers misunderstood and identified the decrement of product orders as the reason for profit minimization, organization would invest millions of capital on promotional programs even though still there is a high potential of customer leaving. Through this example we could understand that a root cause of a problem can be expanded to many environments, disciplines etc. According to this problem organization have to deal with outside social environment with the support of social service providers like police, temples etc to propose a solution. Then only organization can successfully resolve their problem base on that reason.

4. Muda

Resources Waste

Product

Over production Inventory

Waiting Transportation Rework

Motion Over processing

Customers are not going to pay for these

'Muda' is a Japanese managerial concept to improve the organizational performances through reducing the wastage of resources which can be occurred during the production. According to the concept of 'Muda' waste is a over use of resources over and above what is actually required to produce a product for the customers. Even though there is an over use of resources, customers are going to pay only for the amount of resources which are productive to them. So, waste makes a financial lose for an organization. To manage the waste problem according to 'Muda' concept, waste of an organization categorized into 7. Given below are example cases for each category. Over production :Estimated demand for a particular product may be 1000 but the production plant provide 2000 items. Waiting :Assume a bank clerk needs to access to the account information of a particular customer through his machine(estimated time consumption 3sec) . But he is not granted to access to that information. So he has to inform the requirement to his manager(estimated time consumption 5min) and then manager ask the to grant clerk to access to the required information from the IT section(estimated time consumption 2min). Excess usage of time is 477seconds. An oven which bakes cakes maximumly consumes 15 mins in optimal conditions. As a result of inefficient way of it is used, it may consumes 20 mins to complete the same task. 5Mins time wastage occurs. Transportation :Auto mobile product can be produced in a plant in a crowd city. To test its performances, it should be transported to a place in 30Km distance from the plant. An examination inspector correct a examination paper carelessly. Due to the doubt student apply for the second test. Double handling occurred and wastage happened.

Over processing :Assume a construction company construct a building in a place near to Sahara in Africa with a heating system. Heating system is not required and useless in the current situation. So it is a waste. Inventory :A milk powder production company keep a stock of expired tank of milk. It wastefully consumes the inventory space of the company. A kind of drug is produced by mixing HCl and CaOHC. Time to produce CaOHC is greater than time to produce Hcl. So Hcl should be stored for a certain time till the required amount of CaOHC is produced. Motion:In a vehicle repairing company three mechanical officers are working but they have only one tool to do a particular necessary test. There is a time waste to move the tool from one working place to another. There is an common office task which is scheduled to be completed by two office clerks. Documents or people have to move two places to accomplish the particular task. Re Work :In a book publishing company, critical spelling mistake was found at the middle of the printing process. A huge waste will be as a result of re working.

5. Visual Control
'Visual control' is a business management technique which improves the efficiency of a business process by creating a more understandable communication flow among employees through visual signals instead of using text or other written instructions. Visual signals are more effective in communication since they can express information which cannot be expressed even using thousands of words. Unlike texts they are quick understandable and create a clear idea. When we consider a working place, visual controls can communicate about a process even to a visitor who has no any technical knowledge regarding the process. Visual controls always presents a summery, so it can be used for quick decision making. For a effective communication process via visual controls, visual signs should be created with the multi disciplinary knowledge. As example to create a sign to describe a process in production plant, technical knowledge regarding the production process is not enough. Human attitudes, capabilities etc should be considered.

Without using visual control it could be needed thousands of words to describe the things this sign describes

Visual controls help to make quick decisions in a emergency situation

No need of expert knowledge needed to understand there is a danger if the meter is above unit 15

Visual control is used with tool sets

Visual control is in describing a proceedeure

Employees with low technical knowledge also can manipulate a high technical advanced system with the help of visual controls

6. Theory of constraints
Theory of constraints is a managerial concept which consider about the weakest point of a process. According to the concept, a constraint is a point which blocks an organization from arriving to its best performances and achieving expected goals. The performance minimization point can be involve with organizational communication processes, stakeholders, policies, materials, etc. According to the theory of constraints, how well a business performs there is at least one weakest point with the process. And it also state only one weakest point occurred for a time all the others are non-weaknesses until the weakest point is solved. Theory of constraints consist of 4 major steps to resolve the weakest point. Identify the constraint Flow Charts Swim lane diagrams Story boarding Brainstorm Etc.

Manage the constraints

Evaluate Performance

Lean manufacturing Kaizen Kanban

Start Over First step is to identify the constraint which act as the bottleneck of the system. To make it ease to identify the constraint point there are number of tools which are shown above. In the second step small changes or solutions should be provided to eliminate the identified constraint. Solution must be small such as modifying lunch breaks, vacation time etc. In the evaluation step the actions which were taken by the previous steps should be evaluated. For the evaluation, there are number of tools as shown above. If the constraint is not solved, then managers have to provide giant solutions such as invest in new equipment, outsource certain tasks, or take on more staff? Etc. If there are too many solutions, managers have to use tools like Grid Analysis, Cost/benefit analysis etc. to choose the best solution. As the final step after the problem is resolved, managers have to move back to first step to find an another constraint.

7. Total productive maintenance

TPM is originated in Japan as a method for improved machine availability through better utilization of maintenance and production resources. In earlier days there were separate trained maintenance teams to maintain available machines in a firm. How ever with the fast expansion of firms, it was highly cost to maintain a separate maintenance teams in firms. So, with the approach of TPM, managers offered the responsibility of machine maintenance to their own operators. Not only for cost reduction but because of each machine operator is very familiar with their equipments. They are capable of hold maintenance responsibility effectively after a simple training process. Separate maintenance teams should be available only for complex situations. Above mentioned quality is only one of significance in TPM. In advance TPM is Continuously improve all operational conditions, within a production system; by stimulating the daily awareness of all employees (by Seiichi Nakajima, Japan, JIPM). Zero product defects Zero equipment unplanned failures Zero accidents Goals

Focused Improvement Planned Improvement Initial Control Education & Training Autonomous Maintenance Quality Maintenance Office TPM Safety, hygiene & environment Clear business culture Standardize & systematic approach All departments, influencing productivity Transparent multidisciplinary

Activities in TPM

Qualities in TPM business environment

Management should learn the philosophy Management should promote the philosophy Training for all the employees Identify the areas where improvement are needed Make an implementation plan Form an autonomous plan

Start-up activities for the TPM setup