Its astounishing how much a well designed Kaizen board is able to move in the Shopfloor. A clear visualizualization can boost the problem solving and problem prevention by making sure the management attention is at the right spot. To create a perfect shopfloor board, 3 levels should be considered.

1st the process transparency should be created.

That means by looking at the workplace or at the shopfloor board the exact status should be able to be seen, this includes the current situation and the past situation (actual, target, trend). Anyone need to be able to identify the current situation, if it has improved and how far we are from the target. Additional to this first level of creating the transparency, it is important to make the content visually appealing. It must be fun, interesting and easy to understand what is placed on the board. Are we winning? Are loosing? No long explanation should be necessary. Green for good, red for bad. Target number and actual number, esasy, simple, direct, big and colorful. No small fonts or small project charters which no one can read or understand. Big graphics and big status bars. And be aware that every information you place on the board need to be updated. So take care that the update of the board is easy. No printing of paper and bringing it from the office to the shopfloor every week. The update should be made during the shopfloor meeting directly on the board. With a boardmarker or pen in a size that even a person from a 3 meter distance can see and understand. The update should not take longer than 10 second to be done. You just created a board that is interesting, visually appealing and easy to understand. Now, the information you post on it depends on the location you place it. When defining these informations it is important to ask which are the information we need to perform our tasks every day? How can we evaluate that a day has been sucessful or now? What are our most important goals that are worth to keep an eye on? These questions will help you identify the really important aspects for the area.

Regarding to the KPIs I frequently hear about a diferentiation of PI (performance indicators) and KPI(key performance indicators) an sometimes even the really key KPIs. Be careful not to let someone drive you crazy about this. It really dont matter if you define the PI, KPI or Key KPI. Whatever number you define to be useful for you, stick with it for a while. And if there is no use for the number anymore, then simply discart the number and define a new one that has meaning for you. 1, 2 or 3 KPIs are enough to manage any department. When doing so, also make sure not to only use the internal references, but the most important in fact is the external reference. The customer (internal/external) and the market. What do they expect from you?

2nd level: Visualize the deviations

After you created the transparency of your process and it has become easy to see the current status and the development over time, you need to become able to se the deviation in the process. This is done by defining a target situation for each information shown on the kaizen board and then by visualizing the gap between the plan versus actual. This information must again be very visual appealing. Interesting, easy to identify and understand is the basic rule. The deviation should as possible not be identified by the end of the month when certain KPIs are generated, but every day or evern every hour if possible. The reason for that is the urge to go away from a reactive modus to a proactive modus. In a reactive modus you check the deviations but the facts leading to the deviation lays so far in the past that it is not possible to take any contermeasure related to it anymore. It is past and there is nothing you can do to achieve the monthly targets for that month anymore. In this kind of situation you are reacting, instead of acting upon a situation. If you manage to identify the deviations plan versus actual on a daily or even hourly basis, you will become able to act faster and define contermeasures to the development so that you are still in position to achieve your targets at the end of the month. I this 2nd Level you should also make sure that for each identified deviation and countermeasure is defined. The link between the deviation and the countermeasure must be clear established so it is easy to see what has been done to act upon a certain deviation.

3rd level: Solve your problems

the Third level is the problem solving itself. This means not only taking immediate containment actions to react on a certain situation, but to make sure the same kind of problem can never happen again in any similar form. This step is the most difficult to be performed as it requires the analysis and the changing of Standards, which in usually are already well established in the organization. However, only if this step is done properly, the organization becomes able to continuously improve.

And thats the whole idea of a Kaizen board. For problem solving at the Shopfloor, the A3 method is very useful. By combining it with the improvement and coaching kata it becomes a powerful tool for problem solving and continuous improvement.

To visualize your status, identifiy deviations and start the problem solving process, a Kaizen board is an excellent tool. The content of each board may vary, but there are some elements which should be on every board:

• Performance Indicators: are there to visualize how the area is doing according to the targets.
• Deviation list / open point list: Is a record of the reasons why a certain target was not achieved, which problems have been faced and which actions are being taken.
• Kaizen Projects / Improvement projects / problem solving: Is the place where the information about specific, more complex problems are visualized. If the A3 Method is being used, then these can be found here.

The most important area of the kaizen board is obviously the area for the kaizen projects. These projects are defined to solve major problems or to improve a situation according to a stratigic target. Each project or problem solving should have a simple page containing 1. Starting Situation, 2. Problem Description, 3. Target, 4. Actual situation (Data and facts), 5. Root cause finding, 6. Solution definition and Implementation, 7. Target Tracking and 8. Lessons Learned. As much as these steps are in presented in sequence within the A3 formulary, there are far from occuring in this exact order. If a kata is done properly, there is a step-by-step trying and learning moving forward and backwards on the quest to find the cause and experiment with sholutions. Short but frequent talks between mentor and mentee all findings registered in the A3. Thats a good base for a Kaizen.

Great suppliers for the material you need for a Shopfloor Board or Kaizen Board:

www.orgatex.com
www.sesa-systems.com

Examples and Discussions

Certainly you already tried to type “Kaizen board” into Google or Bing. The reslut will be something like this:

Lets take a look on some of these Kaizen Boards.
Starting with the first 2 boards on top left. These ones are often refered as Kanban boards. They are useful to visualize tasks, or in this case, the amount of improvement ideas in different implementation stages. One thing to keep in mind when using this kind of boards is that there is no focus on a certain Topic. Ideas come in, are evaluated and might be implemented or not. There might be a fair amount of ideas rejected by a certain CIP Committee (due to high implementation costs or other reasons). The missing target lowers the motivation of the team towards the Kaizen. For true intrinsic motivation, one clear target need to be established before starting with the Kaizen. The team then works on discribing the actual Situation and identifying the gap to the target state. There is no monetary reward for the problem solving, the reward is the joy of achievement by improving the situation.

The top 2 from the Right are also not specific Kaizen boards. There is one prioritization board (regarding Effort x Benefit) of different improvement ideas and one general information board containing KPI’s, plant layout for gemba walks and general informations. If a Kaizen is truly engaging and clear defined, there must be no prioritization. The target condition has been established from the very beginning and it is aligned with the target of the organization. The decision if a activity should be done or not is simple: Does the activity help us to achieve the target? If yes, then do it. If not, then don’t do it. There is a clear target orientation and all activities have to be directed towards this target.

If we take a look at the 2 pictures from left in the middle row, then we can see a board for one focused improvement. These boards are in fact large A3 formularies which can be filled directly at the shop floor. All the informations are collected on this board and visualized for eveyone in the area. In the pictures however 2 points should be given attention: 1. The informations included in the A3 (in this case the shopfloor board itself) have been all printed from a PC and sticked on the board. This suggests that the “Kaizen Board” is not really beeing used as a tool for the problem solving itself, but ist more likely to be used to report the status and collect information. The base for the A3 is the immediate, easy update of gained knowledge at the gemba. In the shop floor, this update should be done immediately during the conversation of the mentor with the mentee. Steps are defined and learnings registered by hand writing immediately. 2. The fact that the board is segmented in the 8 steps of the A3 problem solving process might also limit the quantity of idea creation. The A3 Problem solving is a open method for problem solving. It has its origin on using a simple clear sheet of paper for registering the progess towards the solution of a problem. The steps and structure on how to proceed should not be ensured by the formulary, but by the mentor which should have a deep understanding of the steps needed for problem solving.

Finally, my recommendation to you, if you want to create that perfect Kaizen board for your area. Place 3 meaningful KPI’s. Clearely identify targets and deviations. Have a record for reasons for deviation. Use A3 for Problem Solving targeting a specific topic. Make the board visually appealing and easy to understand (less is more). Update the board by hand (in 10 seconds). Review daily and use improvement and coaching Kata. In this way you would have created a good basis for the continuous improvement.

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