The Kaizen Event Planner: Achieving Rapid Improvement in Office, Service, and Technical Environments

by Karen Martin

Kaizen Events are an effective way to train organizations to break unproductive habits and adopt a continuous improvement philosophy while, at the same time, achieve breakthrough performance-level results. Through Kaizen Events, cross-functional teams learn how to make improvements in a methodological way. They learn how to quickly study a process, identify and prioritize improvement opportunities, implement change, and sustain their gains. Most importantly, they learn how to work with one another to solve problems rapidly and in a highly effective way.In The Kaizen Event Achieving Rapid Improvement in Office, Service, and Technical Environments, authors Karen Martin and Mike Osterling provide a practical how-to guide for planning and executing Kaizen Events in non-manufacturing settings, and conducting post-Event follow-ups to sustain the improvements made.Geared to continuous improvement professionals and leaders within the office areas of manufacturing, the service sector and knowledge-worker environments, this book provides the methodology and practical tools for generating measurable results, while building a motivated workforce and laying the foundation for continuous improvement.The Kaizen Event Planner provides those responsible for improving office, service, and technical processes with the skills to effectively scope the activity, engage the right people, and facilitate successful Events!An accompanying CD provides immediate access to a number of Excel-based tools.

Genres: Business, Leadership

240 pages, Kindle Edition

First published October 5, 2007

About the author

I've published four business books. Value Stream Mapping is now available for order: www.bit.ly/VSMbk. The Outstanding Organization (www.bit.ly/TOObk), represents my foray into hard cover leadership books. My other two, Metrics-Based Process Mapping (www.bit.ly/MBPMbk) and The Kaizen Event Planner (www.bit.ly/TKEPbk), contain practical tools that support an organization's journey to "outstandingness."

In addition to writing, I keynote frequently and maintain a full client load. For more information, please visit my website www.ksmartin.com and join us on any of the social media sites listed on my home page.

To receive my blog posts, and up-to-date tips, resources and announcements, please subscribe to my list: www.ksmartin.com/subscribe.

In addition to my passion for organizational improvement, I love food and wine, yoga, and power walking along the beach.

Reviews

[Robert Chapman · Rating 3 out of 5]

Certainly a good guide for how to plan and execute a Kaizen event. I gave a lower rating as I found it was too wordy in many places and could have delivered the same message in a lot less text. If you are new to Kaizen events then this book is a good reference.