The Public Health Foundation (PHF) has a new technical assistance offering to facilitate a
kaizen event.
Kaizen is Japanese for “improvement” or “change for the best.” In this intensive, two-day offering entitled
Kaizen Process Improvement Event, a health department will complete a facilitated process improvement in a compressed time format. For the
Kaizen event, the learning begins with a pre-workshop webinar to introduce concepts and prepare for onsite work. Then a two-day facilitated onsite change process incorporates process improvement tools, data utilization, process redesign, and communicating about the change. In spring 2014, PHF launched this service with a
Kaizen event for the
Rhode Island Department of Health as part of technical assistance provided to the agency through the
National Public Health Improvement Initiative. The technical assistance enabled the organization to analyze and improve a troubled process over a brief, concentrated period, during which participants learn the
Kaizen approach and related tools.
A Kaizen Process Improvement Event is for large, cross-functional projects; it augments but does not replace Plan-Do-Check-Act, and is appropriate for situations in which:
1) Need for a solution is urgent. The process:
is clearly not working as well as it should (lots of complaints, rework, defects, unhappy employees, etc.)
is core to business operations and affects many other processes or programs
2) Impact is significant. The process:
affects a large number of stakeholders/customers
consumes a lot of internal resources
is highly visible to stakeholders and/or customers
cannot tolerate prolonged disruptions
3) Willingness to change is apparent in that:
the manager of the affected area has an interest in supporting and making needed changes
the workers are open to change, and are able and willing to participate in an improvement event
This technical assistance uses
Kaizen Process Improvement Tools designed by
PHF Experts. It also builds on the concepts in PHF's 2011 free online book,
Modular kaizen: Dealing with Disruptions. Modular
kaizen is the creation of an improvement or redesign project planned along a timeline that recognizes the highly volatile nature of a public health organization’s core business processes. The book helps health departments achieve quick improvements in disruptive environments.