Kaizen Training

When it comes to strategic business plans, Hoshin Kanri has proven to be a more effective approach than the annual goal setting activities. Many organizations use this methodology to focus their efforts on important initiatives and have achieved set goals.

The Hoshin Kanri process could be described as a tool that management would use to achieve objectives and goals, whilst keeping an eye on the breakthroughs for the future.

Hoshin Kanri process, also referred to as the hoshin planning process, is a strategic management/strategic planning methodology. This process is based on a concept that was made popular by Professor Kaoru Ishikawa in Japan during the 1950s. It was believed that Japanese Total Quality Control (TQC) is designed to utilize employees’ collective thinking power to make their company stand out in as the best in a particular industry. For this management system to be successful, employees at all levels must participate in the efforts.

In its simplest form, the Hoshin Kanri process is a management philosophy which encourages employees to access situations, develop plans for improvement, carry out performance checks and take appropriate actions.
 Now, let’s a look at how this process can help organizations to achieve success through strategic planning.

Hoshin Planning is a strategic methodology that can help organizations to make quick turns, adjustments and changes to avoid a crisis. In this highly competitive world, an organization needs innovation to succeed. Through the Hoshin Planning process, the innovations and actions of employees will be kept aligned with the strategic intent of the company.

In a nutshell, the Hoshin planning or Hoshin Kanri process is designed to help organizations:

• Communicate the desired goals for leaders to expand and use the collective knowledge;
• Focus on shared goals to eliminate wastes;
• Get all leaders involve in the planning to accomplish goals;
• To develop an accountable organization.

Hoshin planning is actually a seven step process which involves management tasks that can help to:

1. Identify the critical business issues of an organization.
2. Set measurable objectives for the organization to address those issues.
3. Identify the overall goals and vision.
4. Develop strategies to support activities which are intended to pursue set goals. This strategy would involve lean techniques and methods in a Lean organization.
5. Establish the objectives and tactics to facilitate each strategy.
6. Come up with performance measures for each business process.
7. Assess business fundamentals

Hoshin planning process uses standardized reports, also called tables, during the review stage. The work teams and managers would use these reports to assess the performance of the organization. Each table would include a header with the plan outline; a situation; the set objectives; milestones to show when objectives are accomplished; strategies showing how objectives were achieved and measures to assess whether or not the strategies were effective.
Overall, the Hoshin Kanri or Hoshin planning process requires a number of Lean tools to achieve success. The process must be managed with PDCA for Kaizen (continuous improvement); need Gemba Walks to help identify issues and a scientific problem solving method is needed to resolve problems or issues.>/p>