Multiply the reach of your kaizens with yokoten
A fundamental concept in the lean philosophy is that of kaizen. In a broader sense, we can say that kaizen is any improvement resulting from the application of a problem-solving method. It can be a systemic improvement led by the company's management, changing an entire value stream. Or it can be a point kaizen made in a process through the operators' ideas.
Kaizens can take place in a variety of ways, such as the famous kaizen weeks, where the improvement effort happens in a concentrated way. Some people even mistake the term kaizen as a synonym for this format, when in fact it can occur in many other ways, such as employee suggestions, kaizen circles, value stream mapping workshops, actions deployed from analyses using the A3 process, etc. The lean ideal is for everyone to make improvements every day in various ways, but always with an appropriate method.
Once an improvement is planned, it must be implemented and have its effectiveness proven, with the new way of working standardized at the end through the PDCA cycle – Plan, Do, Check, Act.
But when a kaizen is completed, there is one more important action, little known and often neglected in most companies, which is yokoten, a Japanese expression that, in lean management, means “to share”. In this case, to share across the whole company problems and solutions that were found and solved in a given location.
It is a lean practice based on a true premise: that in the daily life of organizations, a problem never occurs in just one single place. And that it is very likely that a problem found in a specific area is also, in a similar way, causing losses in other sectors of the company.
In this sense, yokoten is the everyday practice of, when a problem is found and solved in one sector, immediately communicating and spreading it to other areas or units of the company that may have the same problem. That way, everyone can quickly take advantage of solutions already found, tested and approved by their colleagues.
Speaking in practical terms, imagine that, in a certain area of the company, a specific piece of equipment has a particular quality problem. The employees in that sector get together, use problem analysis tools and find a solution. Yokoten would be ensuring that a search is made across the entire company, on similar machines, to check whether the same problem is happening or could happen in other places and to promote similar solutions, if applicable. Or spreading the result of this kaizen in a simple way (for example, an A3 showing the before and after) to other units of the company that have the same equipment and may be facing the same difficulty.
Imagine the power of the kaizen-yokoten pairing, generating a flow of thousands of good ideas systematically exchanged among people from different sectors of the company.
Spreading the results of kaizens through yokoten multiplies the speed and reach of improvements. Don't miss the opportunity to use this important lean concept, yokoten, in your organization.
