Name of Book: Lean Kaizen: A Simplified Approach to Process Improvements Authors: George Alukal & Anthony Manos Book

description: whats the key message? This book is published by the American Society for Quality (ASQ) and is based on the authors work developing and delivering a course in lean enterprise and an additional course focusing on kaizen. It is a practical book that aims to provide a hands-on approach to organizing for and conducting kaizen events. How does it contribute to the lean knowledge base? Lean Kaizen does not intend to provide new information, but contributes to the lean knowledge base by effectively consolidating experiences and examples into a concise body of work that is easy to read, understand and follow. The framework suggested is simple and is well supported by lean theory and practical application in a variety of industries and settings. What are the highlights? Alukal and Manos share a great deal of personal experience with kaizen and have included a wealth of practical knowledge. These lessons learned collectively contribute to a realistic understanding of lean as a process, not a quick fix and are relevant to many challenges lean leaders are likely to face. Practical advice prevails and there are multiple suggestions to help deal with obstacles, challenges and opposition to new thinking, new methods and implementing change. These lessons learned are particularly prevalent and applicable to the soft side of kaizen events including involving people in the process, dealing with resistance from various stakeholders, answering common questions, sustaining results and compelling action. The authors pay particular attention to the importance of keeping the kaizen team to a manageable size while also involving as many people as possible through various forms of communication to solicit ideas, suggestions for improvement and support. The book proposes a structure that stresses preparation, collaboration, inclusion and clearly defined roles and responsibilities. It stresses that immediate implementation of improvements is desired whenever possible and continually reminds readers that a not-so-perfect solution implemented today is better than a perfect solution that is late. Anyone experienced and involved in leading lean transformations would most certainly support these positions.

What are the weaknesses? Lean Kaizen does a great job of explaining how to hold a single Kaizen event. The importance of creating a strategy and sustained effort to link individual improvement efforts with a holistic vision for an activity, function or process is missing. While significant, this is somewhat understandable as the book is not aimed at managers or leaders responsible for setting broad strategic objectives and goals. The intended audience for the book includes, quality or operational professionals who want to start their lean journey at work or to enhance their career opportunities. The first chapters introduction to lean should serve this audience well, however the remainder of the book assumes a much greater base of knowledge than someone new to lean can learn from these few pages. As an example Chapter 5 suggests that the current state VSM is reviewed as a source of data when starting the kaizen process. Current state VSMs are likely not in place in organizations that are only just starting their lean journey; if they are, it is unlikely someone new to lean would not be able to effectively use information from the map without any prior experience or exposure to symbols, notations and data boxes. The level of background information on lean provided does keep the book short and focused on the kaizen process and because of this should not be changed considerably. Addressing this concern could be easily achieved with an additional paragraph or two focused on framing lean as a subject worthy of further exploration with suggestions for additional resources included. This would help people who are new to lean but work in organizations where there is lean activity as well as individuals in organizations entirely new to lean ideas and tools. How to read this to get the most out of it? This book will be most valuable to people and organizations who have some exposure to kaizen activities and are ready to begin organizing and conducting events. The Eight-Week cycle and suggested activities and tasks for each week provide a great standard from which to start. The project examples in the book cover a wide variety of manufacturing, service and office projects and are a good source of ideas and solutions. Referring back to these may provide additional inspiration and practical advice when working with your teams on improvement events within your organization. The pictures and excellent description of actions make it very easy to understand the why and how of lean tools in several diverse applications.

BOOK REVIEW To compete successfully in todays economy, organizations need to be as good as or better than their global competitors. This goes not only for quality, but also for costs and cycle times (lead time, processing time, delivery time, set-up time, response time, etc.). Lean addresses these needs in its emphasis on teamwork, continuous training and learning, produce to demand (pull), mass customization and batch size reduction, cellular flow, quick changeover, and total productive maintenance. Originally applied in manufacturing settings, lean has now migrated to non-shop floor activities: in business support functions, such as sales, customer service, accounting, human resources, engineering, purchasing; within manufacturing firms; and also in purely service areas like finance, government, and healthcare. The intended audience for this book is any quality or operational professional who wants to start their lean journey or enhance their career opportunities. After introducing the concepts of lean and kaizen, various building blocks of a lean enterprise are described. After reading this book, any reader will have a foundation of what is understood today as "lean." All the examples of kaizens presented in the book are from the authors' experience associated with real lean transformations.

This book gives a great introduction to kaizen, along with a sensible "how to" and several case studies across various industries, including for non-manufacturing applications. It also gives a good introduction to Lean in general, and it places enough emphasis on the "human side" of implementing Lean so that the reader walks away with an understanding that the Lean tools may be fairly simple but the implementation of them requires special attention to human nature and the associated challenges. It is easy to read and comprehend. Plenty of pictures and samples are provided. This could easily be used as a training tool for employees who will be serving on kaizen teams.