Problem-solving stepsWhen actually proceeding with problem solving and task achievement , it is possible to decide members from a few to 10 people and work effectively as a team.
Some team activities are called "small group activities" or "project activities" depending on the purpose and the members.
In Japanese, KAIZEN means improvement by small groups. People having same jobs or similar jobs are constructed as a member of the team. The team improves the problems in daily works.
In Japan, KAIZEN is thought as the method to raise the quality of the management .
Small groups act along solution methods. DMAIC and QC Story are those methods . Tools of small group activity are various. Seven QC Tools and Industrial Engineering are popular in production divisions.
(In this page, KAIZEN is introduced as a teaming activity. But there is KAIZEN activity by individuals.)
KAIZEN deals with small and improvement problems.
Often teaming goes to partial optimization because teaming is done from the view of the member of the team. In bad case, KAIZEN will be a reason of bad effect in other process of the factory.
If the company needs the new formation of the company, such problem is not the problem of KAIZEN because the team cannot deals with the problem to delete the jobs of the team.
This problem is for managers. One of the tools of those problems is Reengineering .
I wrote in the page of TQC, TQM, Six-Sigma and Others , that some people say "All sections in the company should do KAIZEN." So when I write about TQM, it is confusing. But I want to write that "At first, TQC was considered as the method to optimize totally in the company. So TQC is the method to balance KAIZEN activities."
Both improvement and innovation are needed for sustainability of the company. What is the work of managers?
The project member is constructed from different section in the company. The member is a represent of each section.
Project deals with new business or wide range problems having to do with some sections.
"Six Sigma" is the activity to improve the process by project (top down approach)
