Left figure shows “5 Steps of Lean Thinking” that is Lean basic concept and its origin is “Through Customer-focused”. This may seem to be naturally, however, it tends to be difficult to think over what is the value to provide to customer eventually and how to maximize it. Because most of people are absorbed in taking care of their daily work and carrying out their tasks like a cog in a machine.

Through “Lean thinking”, we would strive to widely overlook the target process to transform and “eliminate Muda and maximize customer’s value” seeing from customer point of view. Based on this, we can break the wall between each process and work on the true Kaizen for the customer rather than being introverted.

Left picture is the structure of “Daily Management (DM)” that is one sample of Lean activity and expresses the difference from Kaizen that some companies have good experience. At DM, it is the same with general Kaizen that KPIs (Key Performance Indicator) are visualized and PDCA procedure is implemented as a team to achieve those targets. The big difference is that upper management should join DM and make the decision there (yet, it is the general situation in Japan that they tend to give orders only, not work together with staff). Hence, both Top-down and Bottom-up approaches are integrated and people in two positions are accompanied.

In addition, it takes long time that people can develop the high Skill/Know-How required, in order to fulfill their role properly leveraging Lean tool. Therefore, iLean will join/work  DM together and continue to accompany those people until they are well developed so that the target achievement is guaranteed.