Chapter 2How Are We Approaching Process Improvement?

As mentioned near the end of the last chapter, improvement and adaptation are critical success factors and tend to take place at the process level. How, then, are we currently trying to improve our processes? Based on observations in many factories, I currently find these main approaches: workshops, valuestream mapping, and, above all, action-item lists.

Workshops

Improvement workshops are special improvement efforts that temporarily bring together a team of people to focus on a particular process. The duration of a workshop is typically one to five days. Workshops are used extensively and do have their place. Toyota utilizes workshops too, for example, but not as its primary means of improving ...

Get Toyota Kata: Managing People for Improvement, Adaptiveness and Superior Results now with the O’Reilly learning platform.

O’Reilly members experience books, live events, courses curated by job role, and more from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers.