Kaizen Process Improvement Revolutionizes Warehouses

Nearly 65% of warehouse operational expenses go to labor.

Therefore, every wasted moment is lost revenue. In fact, inefficient workflows can account for as much as 30% of your labor costs. Removing those inefficiencies reduces labor expenses while maintaining, if not improving, output without any extra stress on your team members. Yet, eliminating waste is easier said than done.

That’s where kaizen comes in.

Kaizen, or continual improvement, is a method for systematically eliminating waste and improving efficiency with low implementation costs and rapid results. It requires no sweeping changes that disrupt your process, nor does it demand millions of dollars in shiny new equipment. It’s a mindset and the willingness to remember that a journey of a thousand miles is the culmination of many little steps.

Read on to learn:

• What kaizen is
• How kaizen benefits your business
• How to get started with the kaizen method

What Is Kaizen?

Continuous improvement is better than delayed perfection." - Mark Twain

The speed of industry is a raging river; if you don't swim hard, you'll get swept away.

Consequently, you don’t have the luxury of sitting around, waiting for perfect solutions. You have to work with what you have and improve as you go.

That’s the genius of kaizen.

Kaizen is a method for continuous improvement and one of the foundational principles of Toyota Lean Management. The kaizen methodology includes four key principles:

• Continuous improvement. This is simply the recognition that no process is perfect and striving to take little steps toward improvement at every opportunity.
• Respect for people. Improvement and innovation require adopting good ideas wherever they're found. Kaizen recognizes that valuable knowledge exists at every level of your organization.
• Elimination of waste. Waste is a productivity and budgetary killer. Kaizen focuses on reducing inefficiencies in time, labor, materials, and processes to optimize your throughput.
• Standardization. Standardization makes best practices repeatable. This builds consistency, creates a baseline for further improvement, and prevents regressions.

The kaizen tools yield the best results when applied to small, focused projects, called kaizen events.

With kaizen events, any organization can move its business forward every single day.

Kaizen Process Improvement

Have you ever picked up a rental car and found yourself hunting for the headlights and windshield wipers?

If you have, you know why standardization is so vital for efficiency. In your car, your hands know where to go without even thinking, but in a rental, the controls are different, forcing you to slow down and relearn what used to be automatic.

Kaizen uses the 5S method to eliminate this kind of inefficiency in the workplace.

When starting a kaizen event, the 5S method guides the process. The five steps are:

• Sort. Separate essential from unessential.
• Systematize. Organize relevant items for efficient use.
• Shine. Create a culture of cleanliness.
• Standardize. Develop procedures for associates to follow every time.
• Sustain. Review and update the procedure regularly.

Using these incremental steps provides immediate results with low cost and reduced risk.

The Benefits of the Kaizen Method

Perfect is the enemy of good." - Voltaire

If you wanted to run in the Olympics, you would start training years before the race.

Improving efficiency requires the same incremental growth, but too often companies rush the process, going from zero to sixty and throwing their entire warehouse into disarray. With kaizen, you move from adequate to good, then to great, and finally to exceptional. Each little step carries you sustainably forward and culminates in revolutionary results.

While applicable to nearly every facet of business, here are a few common benefits of applying kaizen principles to your operation.

Improved Safety

There’s an old U.S. military adage that says, “In an emergency, you will fall to the level of your training.”

While emergencies aren't daily occurrences in warehousing, the underlying principle is the same. When your associates are distracted or rushing, they'll instinctively revert to habit. Kaizen's principle of standardization creates safe, repeatable habits.

The forklift operator whose standard procedure requires them to stop at every intersection and tap the horn will do so automatically, even when daydreaming. The dock worker who is in a rush to stay on top of a seasonal surge will still clean up if it’s part of their daily routine.

Making safety practices, like careful driving and cleanliness, a habit reduces the likelihood of accidents and protects your staff.

Increased Efficiency

Waste erodes productivity.

Waste at all levels tanks efficiency and cuts into your budget. However, kaizen emphasizes eliminating waste. By removing everything that wastes time, effort, and materials, your process naturally becomes more streamlined.

Streamlining improves throughput and enhances productivity, allowing your team to accomplish more at a lower cost and in less time.

Heightened Employee Engagement

The drive to be a valued member of a community is inherent to the human psyche.

When management makes changes to any process without input from the associates it affects, workers feel unimportant and unappreciated. They have no buy-in and, consequently, are less likely to care if the new process is successful.

However, respect for people is at the core of the kaizen method.

Engaging your workforce by actively including them in kaizen events fosters a sense of ownership among your staff. They helped create this new procedure, and they're committed to making it work. There's another military saying, with language too colorful to print here, that boils down to the idea that even a mediocre plan can succeed with the full support of those involved.

The take-home message is that kaizen gets your employees to care, and that commitment dramatically improves your odds of success.

Future-Proofing

The rapid introduction of new technology constantly changes the industry landscape.

To keep up, you can't let your methods and techniques grow stale. Kaizen's fifth S, sustain, ensures that never happens. By continually reviewing your process and seeking ways to improve, you make a habit of adopting new techniques and technologies that keep your business on the cutting edge.

Instead of scrambling to keep up, kaizen events help you evolve into an industry leader with sustainable, incremental progress instead of costly disruptions.

The Toyota Way: Applying Kaizen Principles

Perfection is the enemy of progress." - Winston Churchill

If you try to make every process perfect from the start, you’ll end up spinning your wheels.

Applying kaizen principles ensures you never get stuck waiting for the ideal solution and instead make constant forward progress. The steps and core values aren't tricky to understand. However, they can be challenging to first implement without expert guidance.

Southern States Toyotalift has you covered.

With our extensive experience in kaizen and all the Toyota Lean Management principles, we can help you get started with your first kaizen events. Our guides help you tailor the kaizen method to your unique operation so you start seeing the benefits right away. Let us help you plant the seeds of continual improvement.

To learn more about kaizen or the Toyota Way, contact us online or visit one of our locations:

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