Each and every work-place can be improved in some way. Kaizen teams, quality circles and other team-based improvement activities are an effective way for teams to analyse their working environment and improve the processes they use to do their work. The team members learn how to use statistical tools and become familiar with the art of problem-solving in the gemba. As soon as a problem has been solved, a new standard is put in place to maintain the improvement. This stops the problem recurring and enables the team to break out of the old habit of continuous fire-fighting.
Every employee is able to halt the production line in the event of a problem.
The new line stopper is the result of a Kaizen project at ECIA in Audincourt, where car bumpers are manufactured. In the past, a worker had to follow the production line for severalmetres in order to solve a problem, hindering colleagues working on that part of the line in the process. Thanks to the stop mechanism and new, synchronized processes, the teamwork has also been improved. In Kaizen, employees have a chance to think creatively about how their workplace can be improved. The traditional us and them thinking between management and workforce is broken down.