Hoshin Kanri for the Lean Enterprise

Book excerpt: Winner of a Shingo Research and Professional Publication Award! At the heart of Lean and Six Sigma is the same, unique business operating system: hoshin kanri. It is a method of strategic planning and a tool for managing complex projects, a quality operating system geared to ensuring that organizations faithfully translate the voice of the customer into new products, and a business operating system that ensures reliable profit growth. The true power of hoshin kanri, however, is two-fold -- it is a superior organizational learning method as well as a competitive resource development system. Hoshin Kanri for the Lean Enterprise, by Tom Jackson, explains how you can implement, identify and manage the critical relationships among your markets, design characteristics, production systems, and personnel to satisfy your customers and beat your competition. This practical workbook provides— A new understanding of hoshin kanri as a grand experimental design implemented through a system of team agreements. Clear explanations of the steps of hoshin kanri. A measure of overall business effectiveness used to determine the focus of corporate strategy. A new, improved X-matrix that incorporates a lean "balanced scorecard" for identifying improvement opportunities and converting them readily into bottom line results as a value stream P&L in terms that financial managers and accountants can understand and support. Downloadable resources containing forms, meeting agendas, and examples of X-matrices that serve marketing and design engineering as well as manufacturing. This workbook will show you the mechanics of implementing hoshin kanri, so that you can systematically improve your brand equity, implement Lean manufacturing and Six Sigma, and integrate your suppliers into a Lean and Six Sigma organization.