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We look back on an innovative "KAIZEN year"

Less wastefulness, setting standards, optimizing processes – slogans which since the introduction of Kaizen have arrived in our offices too. Ever increasing administrative requirements resulting from the complexity of the field of work motivate a special kind of quality offensive.

It is perfectly natural for the KAIZEN Institute in Bad Homburg to always optimize the work in the office, to lift blockades in work routines and to minimize wasting. At Umicore Galvanotechnik too, the maxim has been "Improve the good" since introducing KAIZEN in our offices.
This and many other ways of thinking have been communicated to Umicore management and process companions from the individual departments in an interesting, witty but also insistent way in training courses by the KAIZEN Institute.
The advantage of a 5S campaign is that the employees come to know and train the methods from scratch. Among them standards, visual management, collecting of code numbers and an awareness of order systems.

In the meantime, the newly developed look with the "KAIZEN eye" has questioned many matter-of-fact activities and work routines. Work lists, circulars and forms have for instance been digitalized and made centrally available in order to minimize search times and paper consumption. It is necessary to continue to support this momentum of its own.

For the future it is important to turn the striving for improvement in the right direction. For this purpose the company's goals will be communicated and measurable code numbers determined. Goals and code numbers can e.g. be guided by the times from receipt of order till dispatch, faithfulness to deadlines and suggestions for improvement per employee and year or employee satisfaction.

At the end of November 2007, a customer seminar "Introduction to KAIZEN" was successfully carried out together with Allgemeine Gold- und Silberscheideanstalt, Pforzheim and the KAIZEN Institute, Bad Homburg. The participants among others were employers, company and department managers interested in the benefits of KAIZEN and thinking about an introduction. The educational goal was: How can we systematically and sustainably reduce waste in production and office? How can we save time and money with small steps and simple means? At the end of the seminar, all participants felt very enthusiastic and were highly motivated, above all by the "KAIZEN live" walk onsite, the visits to offices, production and logistics and the KAIZEN process companions who presented everything very vividly.

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