Kaizen #6 – Home Services

Kaizen #6 began Monday with a lecture on Lean Theory, Waste Identification, Visual Management and 5S.  On Tuesday the team performed the floor exercises in the bevel edge departments.  They identified numerous waste (COMMWIP) and 5S opportunities for improvement.  Next the team created a current state process map of the Home Services Department with opportunities for improvement.

CURRENT STATE MAP DESIGN & REVIEW

COMMWIP Observations

  • Contoured Splashes – Built per order & ship
  • Splashes not shipping with orders – Separate order line needs to be created.
  • Material stated & waiting for Router – Need greater router capacity

Items that need improvement

  • Improve Customer Survey Results – Currently 7.68, Goal = 9.0
  • Improve Work Quality of Sub-Contractors – Need training program and audit schedule
  • Delivery Routes – GPS for all delivery trucks

Future State Creation

…The team ran into some tough barriers that were unable to be broken in regards to our information technology specifically, what can we do to automate and implement real-time communication with our Sub-Contractors?  The team remains confident and will meet again further reviewing these issues as well as implementing the improvements in the beveled edge department.  Stay tuned for Kaizen 6.5 coming soon….  UPDATE: L.E. Smith has since built a new website specifically focused to help our sub-contractors and customers stay informed with real time updates!  Thanks to the hard work of this Kaizen team we were able to design what we believe to be a cutting edge Home Services tracking system!

If you have questions or are interested in discussing this further, please feel free to contact me at 419-636-4555 x3225