Using Hoshin Kanri to Improve the Value Stream
By Elizabeth Cudney
In Using Hoshin Kanri to Improve the Value Stream leading lean and quality expert Elizabeth Cudney constructs a complete how-to guide that any organization can employ to start a lean effort correctly and keep it on track. Rooted in practical examples garnered over years of hand-on practice, she illustrates the key principles of lean and value to show how to put them to work.
Cudney points out that organizations often fail at improvement because they go after symptomatic problems rather than the faulty system-wide processes at the root of those problems. She shows how to avoid this common misstep by using value stream mapping to create a current-state map. Done properly, this map will help everyone in an organization understand just how they deliver value to customers and where flawed processes cause them to fall short. The next step is to create a future-state map that defines best processes. While that may seem easy, reaching the goals of future-state maps requires a highly disciplined effort. At this point, Hoshin Kanri – the art of policy deployment – can make a crucial impact. Hoshin Kanri encourages a systems approach that focuses on the long-term strategy of an organization. As much as defining a methodology, it inspires a positive mindset within your organization by starting with improvements that affect flow across the entire organization. In addition to improving the delivery of value, changes with broad impact will catch people’s attention, encourage their involvement and increase the momentum of improvement.
Chapter by chapter, this book defines the key tools, such as Six Sigma, 5S, and mistake proofing, that an organization can employ to initiate needed process improvements.
Using Hoshin Kanri to Improve the Value Stream –
• Uses the strategic long term vision of the organization to prioritize the improvement efforts
• Combines two distinct Lean tools – value stream mapping and Hoshin Kanri
• Presents a unique and effective way of creating the future state of the value stream map
Praise for Using Hoshin Kanri to Improve the Value Stream
“Every industrial engineer should purchase Using Hoshin Kanri to Improve the Value Stream. It provides the key to using the Hoshin Kanri framework and integrating it with the foundations of industrial engineering.”
-Marjorie Koch, President, Lean Division, Institute of Industrial Engineers
“Cudney's book provides a clear and concise view of how to best use Hoshin Kanri to drive improvement and realize the level of results organizations want and need. This book should be required reading for all business executives."
-Karen Martin, Karen Martin & Associates, Author of The Kaizen Event Planner: Achieving Rapid
Improvement in Office, Service, and Technical Enviornments