Making paper planes benefits your business processes
Did you know the insurance industry benefits from what would be traditionally thought of as manufacturing techniques that are Lean and Kaizen? Lean being the elimination of waste, and Kaizen being continuous improvement every day with practical wisdom- that is the wisdom of the teams who do the work. Now the good news about…
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Behaviour through reinforcement
I want to share with you the impact of long term recording and measurement of data when it comes to reinforcing result-producing behaviour from your teams. So firstly, I quite often advocate that in the creation of visual management communication boards, data is recorded by hand. This makes the data more meaningful during the time…
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Creating clarity in your business processes with data
The collection of data leads to huge gains through the removal of non-value added waste from your process. Quite often when we come into a manufacturing situation, we don’t know exactly why work is taking so long, why things aren’t going right But what we do see are a lot of defects or work…
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Taking a Lean approach to insurance: Part 2
So let’s take another look at the challenges faced by the insurance industry. I’m going to delve further into the obstacles Makoto faced while implementing Lean in the head office of a major insurer in Japan. Previously I shared with you the eye-opening conversation about the insurance industry with our President, Brad Schmidt. From New…
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Taking a Lean perspective to insurance
Let’s take a look at the challenges faced by the insurance industry. Recently I sat down with our President, Brad Schmidt, and we discussed the challenges he had in implementing Lean in the head office of a major insurer in Japan. We gained some real insights during this multi-year engagement Insights that strengthened our…
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Chasing waste out of the factory environment increases profit
Chasing and eliminating waste is the most fundamental thing that can be done for our business. When we chase waste from our business as a part of our daily culture and habit we will continuously improve, or have Kaizen. The two are interdependent. Chasing the 8 wastes in a factory or workshop environment as compared…
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Lean and Kaizen for the office – reducing the 8 wastes
When chasing waste out of a business using Lean methodology, we are looking for 8 wastes. Unused Creativity – Transport – Inventory – Motion – Waiting – Over-Processing – Over-Production – Defects It’s common knowledge that the implementation of Lean processes is as relevant to the office environment as it is to the factory or…
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The Makoto Way
I want to talk about what Makoto means- who we are as a company and how we do what we do. Truth – Sincerity – Trust – Fun One phrase we use quite frequently is employee-driven continuous improvement. This is the ability to empower employees in teams to make a change for the…
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Leading the discussion in your business process transformation
One of the first things to acknowledge when conducting a SIPOC is that it will paint a defined picture of your overarching process. SIPOC stands for: suppliers – inputs – process – outputs – customers A SIPOC will help you to visualise the nature and scope of your processes It’s very simple to…
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Visual management and the team meeting
Visual management is linked to and forms a part of 5S. Visual management allows us to picture and then effectively attend to the performance in an area. It’s a tool which, through use, creates a point of power from which to focus on parts of a business in a manner that encourages communication between people.…
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