Kaizen Blitz / Rapid Improvement event

Introduction

Kaizen is Japanese term roughly translated as ‘change for the better’ or ‘continuous improvement.’ The heart of the Ross International programme is the Kaizen Blitz week. This is a focused, intense effort by a team of people from your organization, guided by one of our Facilitators, to implement improvement within a process, system, product, or service. The results are immediate, most often dramatic and provide a fantastic level of satisfaction for those in and around the process.

For the NHS we use the term Rapid Improvement Event (RIE). Both methods are identical.

Our Approach

Kaizen Blitz/RIE is a powerful way to kick-starts continuous improvement in your organization. From the outset, your experience will be tailored and delivered by a dedicated Ross International facilitator. They will explain to you in detail everything that has to be in place before the event to give the winning outcome you need.

We suggest you focus your effort in a pilot area to prove the benefits before a roll-out to other areas. Your team will be empowered to generate ideas, set goals, decide how the goals will be achieved and then implement their solutions – all within 5 days. The team leader and Facilitator will also ensure the area concerned is geared-up for sustainability.

On day 5 your team will prepare and deliver the team ‘report-out’ presentation. This presentation is the high point of the week. Everyone on the team is usually delighted with the scale of their achievements while your organization will see that your faith in this approach has been justified.

The Blitz is over but our relationship has just begun. We will work with you until the result you need has been achieved and ownership is transferred from the Kaizen Team to everyone affected by the new process.

The team

Selection of your team is critical. It needs to be multi-level and multi-functional and representative of the entire process you want to enhance. These people will become champions for the new way and play a significant role in selling the concept to others who are not directly involved in the event.

The benefit to you

You will see improvements over all your key metrics simultaneously - Quality, Cost, Delivery, Safety and Morale. Results will typically deliver clear bottom line benefits, namely greater efficiency and capacity within your processes, reduced lead time to customers and improved customer satisfaction.

By involving the appropriate cross-section of your people, you will ensure the best outcome, and ownership for the new process. Employees will feel a great sense of empowerment and ownership as they themselves will be initiating and making on-going changes.