Supporting lead times in Kaizen

That’s why we recently added an important functionality to the Kaizen Cockpit: the option to add lead times and service standards. That has significant advantages!

Priorities and deadlines in Kaizen

We’ve always worked with priorities and deadlines in the Kaizen Cockpit. You can label your categories and then indicate whether an activity needs to be executed Immediately, Quickly, Soon, Neutral or Later. Then, you have the option to set a deadline.

These functionalities offer you the following options:

1. You can structure your activity list or report on priority or deadline.

2. You can filter the activity list on activity or lead time. Using Activity filters > Deadline > Lead Time, you can select above, below, or at 80% standard. You can adjust the current planning when needed and have a great view on how accurately lead time standards are met.

3. You can call for above-standard activities in the reports. It’s quite convenient to see how often you succeed to work within a given standard and whether it’s possible to refine that standard. For each period or priority, you can see how realistic lead time standards were. To do this, you can select Lead Time Standards, within Reports.

Filling in lead times in Kaizen

Priorities and deadlines bring clarity to the activity list. What remained, however, was the question of how much time an activity costs and what that means in relation to other planned activities. That would give you much more control.  And so we managed to change that!

New in the Kaizen Cockpit is attaching duration to an implemented activity through Tab Activities V4 (in the beta release). To the right of Activity you’ll see the Hours tab. Click on Zero and input your own duration, or select a proposed length.

The reports will show you how many man-hours it takes to reach the standard. For this, go to Reports > Activity Expected Lead Time.

This will give you several new options:

1. You will have more insight into short-time work planning. You can better plan the week now you know how much work it takes to reach the standard.
2. You can also identify and solve long-term bottlenecks. When you know you have two weeks of work coming up in the next four weeks, you can decide to start beforehand and spread the workload.

Working with FIFO

Because you’re better able to plan and to reach standards, it will become easier to work with the First In, First Out principle or FIFO. Within a priority, work can be done according to the order of receipt.

This has important advantages:

1. Immediate work leads to many disruptions.
2. Jobs with a lead time are easier to organize.
3. All activities are actually executed, nothing will be left because of more pressing events.

So try to avoid putting out fires all the time, because everything else will suffer accordingly. With some rest and confidence in the planning, you will get the most done.