02 - Kaizen Blitz: Uncovering Real Possibilities
The use of Lean Kaizen and Kaizen Blitz is increasing year on year across many business environments. Whether at a top University or at the heart of an O&G explorations campaign the principles are universal.
A recent project focused on “reducing book miles” in a well-stocked academic library provides a great example of the use of a Kaizen Blitz to crack a complex problem.
Led by Exceed’s LEAN Kaizen specialist Pat Browne, the project involved bringing together a small team of library staff at their place of work, , to look in detail at “the journey of a book’’ from customer request to getting it onto a shelf. With a library of 1.2million books in print format, an additional 500,000 in electronic format and a staff of 150, the process was seen as ideal for the LEAN Kaizen intervention as it had many of the hallmarks that signal potential waste.
In the space of four days, the team identified and cut out duplication and sources of waste such as waiting, defects, and over-processing. The team also found ways to use existing technology more effectively and streamline the process of book purchasing and processing. A key objective for the team was to free up people for redeployment on other high-priority projects.
The results: a savings of 150 man hours weekly and additional cashable savings due to reduction of duplication and waste.
LEAN Kaizen – and specifically the Kaizen Blitz approach – is a proven business model that is increasingly applied across sectors in addressing issues such as workplace and staff optimisation, creating better flow, decreasing change-over time, improving equipment reliability, etc. Participants from the process in question get together with a clearly defined area of focus and agreed-upon stretch objectives to apply the LEAN Kaizen approach in an intense 4 to 5-day workshop setting.
The power of LEAN Kaizen is that its basic principles are easily replicated from one industry to the next. In upstream Oil & Gas for example, LEAN Kaizen has relevance in every day operations right through to explorations where the continual challenge is that “the next well should be better than the last”.
Examples of successful LEAN applications in the Oil & Gas sector include:
1
Challenge: Reduce the content of materials contained within a work pack, while ensuring all relevant engineering and safety-related content remained.
Result: Removal of more than 25% of the content of the work pack which resulted in thousands of hours less time required to complete the work packs, with a financial saving in excess of £500k per year.
2
Challenge: Reduce the use of helicopters while ensuring service levels were maintained. This involved working with the planning department involved in the logistics of getting personnel and materials offshore.
Result: Coverage outside crew change periods was reduced, resulting in more than £1M saving per year, with no negative impact of service levels to offshore.
3
Challenge: Reduce the time taken to overhaul a compressor. This involved representation of the different trades involved in the overhaul of the compressor, including the manufacturers.
Result: Time taken to overhaul the compressor was reduced by more than 30% while costs of specialist contractors were reduced by greater than 25%. The additional removal of many weeks of delay in waiting on parts resulted in the compressor coming online greater than 40% quicker than previous overhauls
With workforce involvement core to the LEAN Kaizen approach, it empowers those who work “in the process” to attack the issue at hand in the knowledge that they have the support of their leadership team (within given safety parameters). A Kaizen Blitz usually leads to a number of “quick wins” that can be implemented immediately, providing instant results for the team involved and for the organisation.
Sustainable change and the transfer of best practice between operations is realised through building internal LEAN capacity and competence.
For more information on LEAN Kaizen, please contact us.