On Site Observations:

1. The bad quality product goes back to the exact point of production.
2.    Gamba Walk once every day/Cross-functional managers take part. No whiteboards, instead flip charts are used, all steps from finding any problem to the end are recorded on the same page and kept as a record not to repeat it in future. No other paperwork.
3.    Special group to solve Quality problems; Line Supervisor, Line Engineer, and Line Manager come to work on the weekend. Investigate the case, check SOPs, find the root causes, examine and test production, revise SOPs, and the Line Supervisor teaches the lessons learned to his people on the first working day.
4.    Special group to do Shine, the fundamental of TPM; Shine means Inspection of the Machine. Three levels of hierarchy together do 5S as the first step of TPM.
5.    Every operator has a glass jar on the shop floor. They put Green or Red ball into the jar when leaving for the day. Green ball means I worked up to standard today, and the Red ball means I was not capable of doing the job today. Supervisor plans for retraining if she/he finds out too many Red balls being dropped in some one’s Jar. If the problem keeps on showing, it would be understood that the person is not good for this job, and then the person would be trained to do a different job that suits him/her.
6.    Flat Organization Structure, only 5 layers.
7.    R&D department very active to introduce the new product to the market.
8.    Many visual management samples are in place. Planned and Actual number of production, Pictures, and Names of Operators and their Supervisors with Charts and Graphs on Operators Learning Curves, Daily Job Performances and more.
9.     Many old machines are used, kept clean and operational.

One piece flow is implemented. Number of WIP is indicated in SOPs.

Short History of Kaizen Programs at Kaizen Company

•    Like many good Japanese Companies, this company has a long history of Kaizen programs implemented by different names and emphases.
Organizing QC Circles began back in 1975, 652 Circles with 5427 members are registered at this company. They are one of the most active companies in QC Circles in Japan. QC Circles are also organized at the overseas plants as the effective improvement tool.
•    In addition to the annual QCC presentation conferences (2time/year) in Japan, they started to hold the international QCC presentation conferences. In 1994, 13 QC Circles were invited from this company’s overseas plants to make their presentation in Japan.
•    Recently, the company as the corporate started to use Toyota Production System to accelerate improvement efforts.
The new System is called New Kaizen Company System (NKCS). As widely recognized, QCC is bottom-up rather than Top-down in nature. As opposed to the QCC, NKCS is a Kaizen program directed from top management. In other words, NKCS is strong “Directed Autonomous Activities”.

What is NKCS?
NKCS is corporate reform activity this company is implementing globally. Right now, NKCS Promotion Division has the responsibility to deploy activities and monitor progress. Specifically, JIT and Jidoka are the key concepts that are to be applied to both production and indirect sections. The activity has been implemented since 2000 within Japan, and now it is been deployed to overseas affiliates.
The structure is NKCS Promotion Division on the top, coordinating offices are created in the division, and Kaizen department/teams in production sites to be connected to form the entire NKCS structure. The idea of Kaizen of NKCS is understood as top-down corporate reform action whereas QCC is regarded as bottom-up action to extract idea/suggestions from production sites.
Each Kaizen is defined as activities to action goals that are set by each division. These goals combined are to reach corporate goals.

QCC Structure
QCC activities are by the Quality Management Division. It depends on the production sites, however, NKCS department/teams often take the responsibility to implement and promote QCC activities among production sites.