August / September 2011
Gemba Kaizen Blog
Read recent article The Importance of Thinking About the Box on our blog.
Masaaki Imai Around the World
Our founder Masaaki Imai continues to travel around the world leading gemba walks and speaking about kaizen. He is currently preparing for a month-long tour of Europe in November.
Week 45: Manchester, UK - New dates!
Week 46: Almaty, Kazakhstan - New dates!
Week 47: Italy, Poland, Romania
Week 48: The Netherlands, France
Contact us to learn more about events with Masaaki Imai in these countries and how to attend.
Benchmarking
Kaizen Best Practice Tours
Kaizen Institute has been leading world class benchmarking tours to Japan for the past 25 years. The global merger with Gemba Consulting has allowed us to vastly expand our network of best practice tour locations. We are now able to offer "kaikaku tours" not only in Japan but also in China, Germany, Portugal, Switzerland and the United States.
Upcoming Kaizen Tours in Japan:
23-29 Oct, 2011 Kyushu
15-21 Jan, 2012 Kyushu
5-11 Feb, 2012 Hokkaido
15-21 Apr, 2012 Tokyo
Our clients tell us that our best practice benchmarking tours accomplished more in one week to clarify, align and focus their team on breakthrough improvement strategies than in months of meetings and discussion.
Please contact us to organize a benchmarking tour for your company in the USA, Europe or Japan. kaizentours@spam.kaizen.com
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Thank you for choosing Kaizen!
Investing in Our Capability for Human Development
- Kaizen Lean Training Center near Frankfurt, Germany
This year Kaizen Institute has made significant investments worldwide in our capability for human development. This includes not only the development of the "soft" side such as online and live training programs and instructors' skills, but also in the "hard" side such as training facilities and learning spaces within our offices.
Some have questioned the wisdom of a professional service firm such as our spending money on brick and mortar in this electronic day and age, but we are following the strong voice of our customer.The more our clients progress on the lean journey, the more they realize the need to continuously develop their people.
In May of this year the Kaizen Institute Iberia team moved into their newly built facility in Portugal. Designed based on lean principles, the space has already been used to facilitate internal workshops, benchmarking tours, and customized learning events for clients.
Kaizen Institute in Bad Homburg, Germany is our center of excellence for the Kaizen College certification program. This September, we open the KAIZEN Lean Training Center. It is a 800m square space of interactive learning of lean manufacturing and lean office principles. Equipped with workstations and practice areas, the training center is designed to speed up the cycle of competency building through hands-on learning.
The flexible and modular learning center can be adapted to suit specific needs of customers, to host multiple small groups or as a unique leadership off-site experience.
Contact Kaizen Institute Germany to learn about our open-enrollment courses and competency development programs customized to the needs of your organization.
Kaizen Institute India Opens "Lean & Green Office"
Kaizen Institute India has pioneered the application of "Lean & Green" concepts in the design of their new office in Pune, India. Although many of the offices of Kaizen Institute are designed and managed based on lean principles such as visual management, quick changeover and 5S, this is ourfirst office worldwide to combine Lean and Green.
Kaizen Institute India needed to expand its office space to in order to provide meet increasing demand for training. This was also an opportunity to expand service offerings to include "green kaizen", the application of kaizen to energy savings and environmental benefit. The newly designed office incorporates more than 20 specific improvements which help reduce energy consumption, reduce pollution and make processes eco-friendly.
Visitors can not only learn about kaizen, but see Lean & Green in action. The new office has skylights to provide natural lighting, an insulated roof, vinyl double-paned windows, infra-red-proof window panes, recyclable construction and furnishing materials, an evaporation-based cooling system and energy-efficient LED lightning.
“The decade of 1991-2000 saw the quality wave. The decade of 2001-10 witnessed the operational excellence wave. The current decade is bringing us the third wave: lean and green,” Said Vinod Grover, founding partner and director of Kaizen Institute India.
About Kaizen Institute India
Kaizen Institute India was established in 2000. It's growing team of 20 consultants have helped more than 400 organizations across India, the Middle East and Africa adopt operational excellence practices both in private and public sectors.
Contact Kaizen Institute India for assistance on your lean journey, or to request a Lean & Green tour of our Pune office.
Kaizen Institute China Launches "Kaizen College" Certification
Kaizen Institute China launches the Kaizen College on September 14-17, 2011 in Shanghai, China with the Kaizen Foundations course.
Participants will enroll in the Kaizen Practitioner certification program, with the option to continue to Kaizen Coach and Kaizen Manager certification levels. The program will be a combination of classroom-based exercises and activities with practical exercises at an actual workplace.
Kaizen Institute China has spent nine months in preparation and development under the guidance of Carsten Otto, senior consultant and lead trainer from Germany. China follows New Zealand and India to offer the full Kaizen College curriculum in Asia.
"For many years our clients have developed lean experts using our Academy model," says Kai Yang, Managing Director. "The open-enrollment Kaizen College program make it much easier for people to get started with kaizen certification."
Contact us to learn how Kaizen Institute China can assist you with your human development and performance improvement needs.
Kaizen in City Hall Improves Customer Service
Kaizen Institute is always honored when invited to teach kaizen to civil servants and members of local government dedicated to improving the quality of life for its citizens. The Rotorua District Council in New Zealand took its first steps this year in an ambitious journey to become a "Lean Council".
Lean online Training
For more information:
Kaizen Institute Consulting Group subsidiary Gemba Academy develops and delivers high quality online training in lean, kaizen and continuous improvement topics. As of September 2011 we offer over 199 video modules . We add new content each month.
New this Month
We have release the 3P Production Preparation Process course. In this course senior consultant Mike Wroblewski uses a hospital design case study to explain the 3P principles.
View our full list of online training courses.