I was lucky enough to see this Kaizen video a few days ago and am recommending it to everyone. It is a great example of how quickly improvements can tested and implemented.
Synopsis- A company takes a manual packaging process and by doing quick iterative Kaizen improvements over the course of a couple of hours (compressed to 23 minutes) they decrease processing time from 45 sec. to 14 sec, saving an estimated 200 man hours per yr = $3,000.
The entire video is 23 minutes however if you just watch the first 5 min you will see the process changes dramatically. By the end of the video, the process has a really nice flow.
Being a good uncle, and Lean practitioner, I required my nephews P. (12 yrs) and B. (8 yrs) to watch the video before I took them to Marvin's arcade. They tell me they are inventors and innovators so I wanted their opinions on the Kaizen process.
P. said "It was boring but they thought of things he wouldn't have so it was pretty good and they should build robots to help."
B. said "That it was awesome but they need a conveyor belt and a huge machine to make a lot of them."
I think I'll have to put them through a little more Lean training and find some "cooler" videos on JIT, Pull and VOC for them to see. Then I'll ask them if they still think they need robots, a huge machine and a conveyor belt.
