Welcome to KAIZEN® Institute New Zealand
KAIZEN® Institute New Zealand is the leading provider of KAIZEN® and LEAN consultancy, training and coaching in New Zealand.
Our team of consultants have practical experience in the application of Lean Thinking and are experts in applying the Toyota Production System (TPS). Our team is trained in the use of our advanced Lean techniques, incorporating the latest research and case studies, providing a holistic approach to implementing Kaizen Lean in many different industries.
We at the KAIZEN® Institute support companies of all sizes and industrial segments as well as private and public service organisations seeking to embark on their Lean journey.
About Kaizen
Many organizations use a continuous improvement process that was created in-house. Usually, this method requires that everyone develop a list of projects and then managers assign resources to each project. In the past, this method was often effective enough to allow these companies to compete and to meet their customer demands and expectations. However in the last decade or so, customers have been rapidly changing their expectations. Changing technology and communications systems may be the cause, or it may be that customers just naturally want more, want it faster and want it to cost less.
If this method of continuous improvement has allowed you and your team to stay in the game in the past, but year after year it seems to become more difficult, then you likely realize that you are losing ground. Maintaining your competitiveness in this way is getting harder and harder. The same thinking and actions you have always done in the past will not work in the future. You need a more powerful and effective approach to driving change throughout your organization both culturally and technically.
If your company needs to do more with less, KAIZEN Lean is your answer.
Danie's Trip Report - Seattle 2011
I’ve joined my fellow Kaizen Institute’s Strategic Council members in Seattle for three days of strategic planning. All the hard work was obviously well balanced out by great dinners and the compulsory seasonal eggnog Latte at Starbucks.
I’ve made the most of the trip by arranging a few extra stops …
Lean for Local Government – Pursuing Service Excellence
Traditionally we see Lean thinking and Kaizen as tools and philosophies that are applied to manufacturing operations. The widespread adoption of Lean thinking in many industries has demanded that these traditional manufacturing tools and techniques be adapted to suit service oriented industries, including Banking, Insurance, Healthcare and Government.
Visual Standards at RWC 2011 Before & After!
I want to thank everyone that dropped me a line to thank me for this story first featured in last month’s email. It seems the Tongan house got everyone’s vote for the best example of Visual Standards, in celebration of their team’s superb efforts during RWC 2011.
I thought it was time to take another tour down Burnley Terrace, as I still have my bunting in place, I thought I’d check to see what the neighbourhood was doing, bathing in the aftermath of the colossal 1 point win!
Total Productive Maintenance
Kaizen Institute NZ is pleased to announce the official launch of their Total Productive Maintenance (TPM) training and coaching services to enable New Zealand business to access world class lean expertise in the field of equipment and asset life cycle management.
The Kaizen Institute are global leaders in the field of TPM and utilise the original TPM methodology from the Japanese Institute of Plant Maintenance (JIPM).
Kaizen Consultant of the Year Award
Once a year the KI family get together to train, share and celebrate success, culminating in a gala awards dinner where team and individual achievements are recognised by the whole team.
One of the most highly prized awards, is “Consultant of the Year”, which is a title every KI employee would love to add to their honours.
Definition of KAIZEN
KAIZEN Tours
Japan Study Tour 2009
Follow Richard Steel's journey on the Benchmarking Japan Study Tour 19-24 October 2009
Day 1: Toyota Tsutsumi Plant
This year’s October’s KAIZEN & Lean Japan benchmarking tour ran from 19th-24th October. The tour began with the group assembling at the Castle Plaza hotel in Nagoya. Nagoya is the heartland of Toyota, with the majority of the motor plants, subsiduaries and trucks and industrial division within an hour of the bustling city centre.
NASA Report Clears Toyota of Safety Fears
NASA has just released its highly anticipated report in regards to the quality and safety issues identified, causing the Sudden Unintended Acceleration (SUA) charge in Toyota vehicles.
www.nasa.gov/topics/nasalife/features/nesc-toyota-study.html
The verdict is in. And Toyota's electronic throttle control system is fully exonerated. The ten-month study by 30 NASA engineers found "no evidence that a malfunction in electronics caused large unintended accelerations," according to Michael Kirsch, principal engineer and team leader of the study. This means that that the reports of SUA were caused by "pedal misapplication," otherwise known as driver error.
Exciting Announcement number 1:
Partnership with Skills4Work
We are happy to announce that Kaizen Institute NZ and Skills4Work have formed a partnership to pool resources and knowledge to create additional capacity and expertise. This partnership will marry proven robust workplace productivity programmes with advanced Kaizen approaches and techniques to provide a complete range of solutions for manufacturing, Government and service sectors and beyond.
The fragmented nature of New Zealand’s Lean training and consulting market often makes it difficult for New Zealand organisations to identify the most suitable Lean training and consulting providers. The KINZ and Skills4Work partnership will help consolidate the market to provide a proven high-quality “one-stop-shop that covers all Lean training and consulting requirements.”
The Kaizen Institute NZ and Skills4Work teams and approaches are complimentary and we are passionate about implementing sustainable Lean in New Zealand organisations of all sizes and in all industry sectors a vision for the future of New Zealand industry.
Exciting Announcement number 2:
Lean Gemba Academy – Waikato
We’re very excited to announce the launch of a Waikato-based training academy within Stainless Design limited’s award-winning factory in Hamilton. This means that we will be able to offer classroom training at Stainless Design’s training facility and then have direct access to their factory to demonstrate, observe and apply the learning in the factory – or the “Gemba”, a Japanese term meaning “the real place where value gets added, and where the work gets done!”.
Stainless Design limited is widely recognised as one of New Zealand’s best examples of how Lean is being implemented in all areas of the business. Not only is the factory an excellent showcase for a range of Lean applications, but the back and front office and design processes also shows numerous great examples of Kaizen Lean in action. This will be a unique opportunity to learn from and within a company that has been on the “lean journey” for in excess of 5 years, and is passionate enough about the benefits of Kaizen Lean that they are opening their Gemba to the concept of “living workshop” learning.
Skills4Work and Kaizen Institute are both supporting Stainless Design on their Lean journey. We have established the first Lean Gemba Academy to offer a blend of Kaizen Institute and Skills4Work courses with a hands-on practical application. The Lean Gemba Academy - Waikato will be launched in November and course schedules will soon be published on our website.
The first training course that we’re offering is a 3-day Lean Supply Chain -Total Flow Management (TFM) workshop that will cover the Pull-Flow concepts. We’ll observe and learn from Stainless Design’s very good example of how Pull-Flow works in their factory. Read more in the TFM Brochure or Register Here
Publications & Training
New Book!
Total Flow Management: Achieving Excellence with KAIZEN® and Lean Supply Chains This new book describes the application of the principles of Flow, Synchronization and Levelling to full Supply Chains. Author: Euclides A. Coimbra
