Kaizen: Small Changes, Spectacular Results

Kaizen: Small Changes, Spectacular Results

By Susan Avery

March 27, 2014 at 10:58 AM

Charged with leading process improvement? Stop beating yourself up over it!  

While the responsibility may seem daunting--and process change is an area where procurement must take a lead role--there is a way that can help you realize real results for your organization. 

Kaizen, a philosophy of reducing waste while constantly improving the process, is one way. In fact, Kaizen means change for the better. 

That’s thinking of Dr. Tom DePaoli, Management Program Director at Marian University in Fond du Lac, Wis. DePaoli, also the CEO at business consulting firm Apollo Solutions, is the author of the new book Kaizen Kreativity (Oops!)--Don’t Be Afraid of Looking Stupid. I’m an Expert at It. 

“What happens a lot of time with process improvement is that consultants are very dogmatic with their methodology,” he tells My Purchasing Center. “People are intimidated. I try to make it fun and I encourage people to be creative.” 

DePaoli's book, Kaizen Kreativity, is a fundamental field manual or guide, in which he simplifies the methodology for the reader, shares success stories, and points out mistakes he’s made using Kaizen. He wrote the book for both novice and experienced users.  

In it, he writes, “the book is a summary of many of the Kaizen lessons that I learned in my career...I have woven together many of the lessons learned to help you avoid the numerous mistakes that I have made....I strongly believe in the Kaizen process.”

DePaoli reinterprets the definition of Kaizen for the reader as “a creative but structured approach to improve a process or to eliminate anything of non value, by the people who actually do the work. 

That’s important to him. “I want to give everyone a broader perspective of process improvement,” he says. “The people who benefit the most are those who are actually doing the work. That’s because they understand the process. Kaizen is going to make it better for them and, ultimately, for the customer, which is important.” DePaoli says Kaizen can be used by large and small companies for such projects as high operating costs, low yield rate, long cycle time and unpredictable quality. 

He firmly believes that procurement should take the lead on process improvement and has written about the topic in his blog at My Purchasing Center. Not only is procurement a master at managing relationships, but also “there are only two departments that generate revenue for a company--sales and procurement. Why wouldn’t procurement try to improve processes and generate more revenue?”

DePaoli shares a story of when he was working as head of procurement for company with an annual spend of $500 million and he was asked to take the organization from tactical to strategic. The company reduced head count from eight to four buyers and the plant manager was not committed to the transformation. Spend data was scarce and procurement spent much of its time “fighting fires.” No one could explain the PO process. 

He mapped the process and designed a new PO form for the plant’s “power” requisitioners. He took procurement out of the process and mandated requisitioners purchase from preferred suppliers. He created a new process map, manual and SOP for the power requisitioners. All this, DePaoli relates in the book, drastically reduced procurement’s workload, the supplier base and error rates. Eventually, the organization began using pcards for these purchases. Soon procurement started asking to work on more strategic initiatives.  

In this case, he was creative with Kaizen. “We essentially used all the tools, but not quite in the sequence recommended.” 

DePaoli also shares mistakes he’s seen. A big one is having a sponsor who is not committed to Kaizen. “I’ve seen organizations build a team that’s raring to go, but the sponsor drags his feet on implementation. Imagine what that does to credibility and morale.” 

Another is that some people proceed without a full understanding of the tools. “It’s difficult to teach and examine the process at the same time,” DePaoli says. “I like to teach the tools before I do the Kaizen.” He also likes to use common experiences in his teaching to make his point. 

In addition to the success stories and common mistakes, the 167-page book contains training exercises as well as a training presentation, a roadmap, tips, a glossary of terms and lots more.

DePaoli is the author of the books Common Sense Purchasing and Common Sense Supply Management. His blogs appear regularly at My Purchasing Center. The books are available at Amazon.com. 

Also see: DePaoli's blog at My Purchasing Center: How Can We Get Young People Interested in Supply Chain Professions?

Tags: purchasing Supply chain management Procurement sourcing process change Kaizen

Category: News Article

Susan Avery

Susan Avery is Chief Editor at My Purchasing Center. She writes articles, blogs and white papers and manages and creates other content for the online procurement and supply management publication. She produces and moderates webcasts. Susan has more than 25 years experience covering procurement and supply management for Purchasing magazine and Purchasing.com. 

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