Lean Kaizen Improvements – Shock Tech

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Problem / Challenge

A privately owned engineering-manufacturer of specialized systems for the aerospace industry needed to evolve from a small niche business to a growing market leader. The operational processes that worked in the past were inadequate for the future and were constraining growth. Personnel had become accustomed to the old ways of doing business and were resistant to change.

The GM knew the company needed to improve its processes and change its culture to one that embraces change and empowers its people to be involved in overcoming growth obstacles. This required the GM’s management team to grow and learn to embrace change.

The GM was seeking a Lean-Kaizen consulting firm to partner with and facilitate the transition to a continuous improvement culture that would take the company into the future.

Management Team Planning

We started by facilitating the management team through a 2-day working session. The first day was an Assessment, touring the facility and meeting the team one-on-one. The second day the management team met as a group and the GM laid out his vision for the future.

A culture that:

• Embraces change and growth
• Promotes and rewards initiative to make improvements
• Involves the workers who do the work

The rest of the session was spent planning the next steps:

• Management team training on Lean, Kaizen and empowering teams
• Create a plan to conduct 4 Kaizen events, 4-days each, over 12 months, with topics focused on overcoming growth constraints
• Agreed that all employees would receive 90 minute Lean/Kaizen overview training

Company-Wide Training

The training prepared employees for changes and helped make them feel a part of it. Most never worked on a CI project team before, therefore getting them to participate would be challenging. During the training we covered:

• Future state vision for the company
• Brainstormed overcoming growth constraints
• Presented the Kaizen plan for the year

Kaizen Agenda & Tools

• Problem Statement
• Key measures or data needed
• High level Value Stream Map to identify growth constraints
• Current state process flow map for core processes
• Analysis, potential recommendations and discussions with subject matter experts
• Develop KPIs for monitoring performance
• Final recommendations and improvement plan including training and standard work
• Action item list with follow up plan

Kaizen DMAIC 4-Day Methodology

Each Kaizen event followed a structured 4-day DMAIC methodology – Define, Measure, Analyze, Improve, Control – to systematically identify root causes, develop solutions, and ensure transition of responsibility to process owners for sustained results.

Process Flow Map

As part of the Kaizen events, detailed process flow maps were created to document the current state of core processes, identify bottlenecks, and design improved workflows.

Results

The Kaizen events were successful, but like all real improvement initiatives, they required follow-up and communication. Personnel needed time to adjust their thinking before they fully adopted the new management approach and their empowered role.

The first four Kaizens included a product quality issue, two processing speed (too slow) issues, and a process quality/accuracy issue. 4 Kaizen topics chosen: (1) quality, (2) process speed, (1) process accuracy.

• Significantly reduced the quality issue by establishing standard work for a key process
• Reduced the time required for the quoting process and the prototyping process by 50%
• Updated and standardized the purchase order review process to ensure the company met contractual requirements

We continue to facilitate multiple Kaizens per year, going on our 3rd year.

Reference

Joseph Fuggini, General Manager

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