Journal of Industrial Technology • Volume 16, Number 1 • November 1999 to January 2000 • www.nait.

org

Volume 16, Number 1 - November 1999 to January 2000

Kaizen: An Essential Tool for Inclusion in

Industrial Technology Curricula
By Mr. Samson S. Lee, Dr. John C. Dugger, & Dr. Joseph C. Chen

KEYWORD SEARCH

Management
Manufacturing
Philosophy
Production
Quality Control

Reviewed Article

The Official Electronic Publication of the National Association of Industrial Technology • www.nait.org
© 1999

1
 Journal of Industrial Technology • Volume 16, Number 1 • November 1999 to January 2000 • www.nait.org

Kaizen: An Essential Tool

for Inclusion in Industrial
Technology Curricula
Mr. Samson Lee is currently seeking his Master’s By Mr. Samson S. Lee, Dr. John C. Dugger, & Dr. Joseph C. Chen
degree in Industrial Education and Technology at
Iowa State University. He is also the manager of
computer laboratories in the department. His re- stronger emphasis on manufacturing, implementation, it becomes the
search interests include developing intelligent along with the creation of a separate foundation of all activities. In the
machining control systems using neural networks,
and implementing computational manufacturing manufacturing division that supports a production activities within organiza-
technology in education. journal focusing on manufacturing tions, utilization of the Kaizen philoso-
topics. The call for the formation of a phy addresses continuous improvement
separate manufacturing division within not only in management, but also in the
the association became so strong general workforce. Womack and Jones
during the 1998 National Association (1996) refer to Kaizen as Lean Think-
of Industrial Technology (NAIT) ing and lay out a systematic approach
conference that several division to helping organizations systematically
organizing sessions were conducted. reduce waste, or Muda. This approach
The outcome of these sessions was that is described in the next section.
the Executive Board of NAIT, soon
Dr. Dagger’s grantsmanship activities include more after the 1998 conference, approved a Overview of Kaizen Philosophy
than $400,000 in curriculum development and separate manufacturing division to be Many of the “quality” programs
research projects. He has made more than sixty
presentations at the national and state levels, and fully implemented during the 1999 have called for benchmarking competi-
published more than nineteen refereed articles in NAIT Annual meeting. tors and establishing measures for the
related journals. Dr. Dagger’s current interests are
in the evaluation of training interventions in manu- One of the primary objectives of industry. Womack and Jones (1996)
facturing organizations. He c0-directed two manufacturing technology programs is wrote:
projects in this arena and is directing doctoral dis-
sertations in related areas. to teach students how to create and Our earnest advice to lean firms today
improve manufacturing systems by is simple: To hell with your competi-
reducing costs, improving quality and tors; compete against perfection by
decreasing cycle time. Much emphasis identifying all activities that are muda
has been placed on CAD/CAM, CNC, and eliminating them. This is an
visual electronics, Programmable absolute rather than a relative stan-
Logic Controllers, and robotics to solve dard which can provide the essential
problems in the manufacturing environ- North Star for any organization. (p.49)
ment. However, Ashley (1997) reports
that more employers are demanding Kaizen training has focused on
that graduates have further experience both philosophical and cultural con-
Dr. Joseph C. Chen, PE is an associate professor in
the Department of Industrial Education and Tech- in TQM (Total Quality Management), cepts and is based on the belief that the
nology at Iowa State University. Recently, he re- SQC (Statistical Quality Control), and development of an individual’s skill
ceived Early Achievement in Teaching Award from
the Iowa State University. His research interests Kaizen, the Japanese philosophy of benefits both the company and that
are in cellular manufacturing systems, machine continuous improvement. individual, and that people constantly
tool dynamics, and intelligent control as it relates
to neural networks and fuzzy control. With the wide range of programs aim for self-improvement (Imai, 1986).
that have been available, such as QC This declaration contains elements of
Although industrial technology (Quality Control), SQC (Statistical the famous motivational theories
(I.T.) programs cover a wide range of Quality Control), and TQC (Total developed by Abraham Maslow
curricula, such as construction, com- Quality Control), it is easy to become (Chester, 1994).
munications, power and energy, and confused and lump Kaizen with the Womack and Jones (1996) describe
manufacturing, a review of the 1999 other “quality”-focused programs. Muda as any human activity that
National Association of Industrial According to Imai (1986), Kaizen absorbs resources but creates or adds no
Technology Baccalaureate Program means “continuous improvement”. Not value to the process. Most employees
Directory indicates that the largest just a philosophy of the workplace, it could identify several different types of
portion of the programs operate under means continually improving in every muda in their workplace, but unfortu-
the manufacturing umbrella. At least facet of life, including business, nately the waste that they identify is
one recent article (Dugger & industry, commerce, government, and only the tip of the iceberg. The authors
Teegarden, 1997) has called for a diplomacy, among others. In full continue by stating that until these

2
 Journal of Industrial Technology • Volume 16, Number 1 • November 1999 to January 2000 • www.nait.org

employees have been taught the essen- company. The benefits of undertaking then, begins with forming a Kaizen
tials of lean thinking, they are unable to this process are also discussed. team that is responsible for the product,
perceive but a few types of the waste while also carrying responsibilities for
actually present in their environment. Company Background the consideration of the process. In
The Kaizen or Lean Thinking The study was undertaken in what this step, the facts of the process and
approach begins with “…a conscious shall be referred to as “Company A”, a the direction for improvement are
attempt to precisely define value in small Iowa manufacturer, at the examined. This information will be
terms of specific products with specific beginning of a new era in the field of used in the next step, the current
capabilities offered at specific prices concrete reinforcement. Today, steel is process, to gather information about
through a dialog with specific custom- about the only available concrete- the process.
ers.” (Womack & Jones, 1996). Many reinforcing material. Steel has an
steps, such as attaching a wheel to a average to above-average tensile and Step 2. Description of the process
frame or moving a case of product sheer strength, correlatively weak used by Company A
from one location to another where the thermal properties, and a rapid corro- The first step of the current process
product is in demand, will clearly add sion rate. What Company A has is to load spools of glass fiber to be fed
value to the product. Some will not add attempted is to invent a structural into the pull-truder. These long glass
value but will remain necessary under reinforcement for concrete that carries fibers are run through a trough of
current conditions, and these include all the strengths of steel while eliminat- heated resin as a series of heated
testing the installed wheel or packaging ing the problems associated with its molds. Each mold breaks through the
the product prior to shipment. A second weak corrosive and thermal character- resin at a different (controlled) tem-
type of muda adds no value and could istics. What they have developed is a perature, and these specific tempera-
be eliminated immediately since it is dynamic tri-resin fiberglass rod. This tures force the resin to solidify to a
not necessary. rod has about 120,000-lbs/inch2 tensile desired hardness. After the product
Once the value stream has been strength, which is about 100 times that passes through the heated molds, it
identified, the next step in lean thinking of steel. But what makes their product goes to the painting machine, which
is to address flow. This requires a so ingenious is that it is resistant to prints a code on each of the three rods
dramatic change in the way the prob- chemicals and almost 100% non- extracted from the pull-truder, which
lems to be undertaken are structured. corrosive. It also has low heat conduc- ejects three rods at a time at the slow
Womack and Jones (1996) provided an tivity (2.1 BTU/ft2/hr/F/in). rate of three and a half inches per
example involving preparing a newslet- To allow the product to serve more minute. After the painting, the rods are
ter for mailing. Most of us would customers, Company A has designed a directed through a hole in the wall and
tackle the problem after the printing wall system using precast or pours are driven through the hole until they
has been completed by folding all instead of concrete walls. They work reach the desired length of 107 feet
copies of the newsletter, placing stamps closely with a chemical company (321 linear feet), in about 35 minutes.
on the envelopes, then inserting the (Company B) and use Styrofoam along At this point, a hand grinder cuts
folded newsletter into an envelop and, with their own connectors to make a the rods and the three separate, 107-
finally, sealing all of the envelopes. sandwich-type wall. Company A’s foot lengths are massed on the floor.
When examining this process, it is not connectors hold the foam in place and An employee then feeds six of the long
readily apparent to the observer that the work together to produce a wall with four rods slowly into the cutting machine.
newsletter is picked up four times. We times the normal R-value of a typical The rods are bent, and wound around
compartmentalize and attempt to group insulated concrete building. Tremendous two barrels to conserve space. They are
tasks without looking at the flow. It success with this product has created a then fed through six pipes, which line
would reduce muda if the newsletter need to expand and increase production the pieces up. Of each 107-foot piece,
were folded, inserted into the envelope, in their Ames facility. 7 feet are wasted in this process due to
stamped, and stacked. When ex- the design of the cutoff machine.
plained, this opens up a new world of Kaizen Procedure The cut rods are boxed by hand
operation to those studying manufac- Depending on the objectives of the and taken to the injection molders
turing processes. The Kaizen process improvement, there are many ways to where they are fitted with plastic
carries many other benefits as well. implement the Kaizen procedure. The collars. After the rods are fitted with
flow chart, shown in Figure 1 (page 4), the collars, they are packaged accord-
Purpose demonstrates the Kaizen procedure ing to the consumer’s desire and
An example of a systematic process taught at one Midwestern university. shipped out. Figure 2 shows the flow of
utilizing the Kaizen approach would be the current process. Utilizing the
helpful to I.T. instruction. The follow- Step 1. Form the team and gather Kaizen methodology, the team will
ing case study provides a description of information select the aspect of the process most in
the steps used to implement lean According to Shores (1994), the need of improvement.
thinking in a typical Midwestern productivity of most processes tends to
increase. The process of improvement,

3
 Journal of Industrial Technology • Volume 16, Number 1 • November 1999 to January 2000 • www.nait.org

Step 3. Decide goal of the team

After gathering detailed informa-
tion about the current process, the
Kaizen team identified the goal, which
took into consideration the directions
of the management group. In this case
study, the team decided to focus on
improving the method of storing the
rods due to the excessive waste gener-
ated by the normative process. This
improvement was expected to reduce
more than 50% of the waste of that
process. This reduction of waste was,
in turn, expected to reduce the total
cost of production.

Step 4. Alternative Storage Method

Following the Kaizen methodol-
ogy, the Kaizen team developed seven
ideas to improve the storage of the rods
after they are ejected from the pull-
truder. Below are the seven alternatives
and some advantages and disadvan-
tages of each. Figure 3 demonstrates
these seven alternatives at a glance.
1. Stay with current method: Cut the
rods to 107¢ lengths, storing them
on the floor
Advantage: no changes are
necessary, no equipment needs to
be moved, and workers need no
training in the new storage
methods.
Disadvantage: The forklift runs
over rods as they exit pull-truder,
thereby generating excessive
waste at the cutoff machine.
2. Bend the rods around three large
spools
Advantage: an entire day of pull-
truder production can be stored on
these spools, very little waste is
generated, and less space is Figure 1. Flow chart of Kaizen procedure
consumed.

Figure 2. Current process at a glance.

4
 Journal of Industrial Technology • Volume 16, Number 1 • November 1999 to January 2000 • www.nait.org

Disadvantage: the spools are very of the building. accordion)and store overhead
bulky and very heavy. 5. Cutoff at short lengths and store in Advantage: longer rods are
3. Run rods directly into the cutoff bins for transport to the cutoff generated so there is less waste.
machine machine Disadvantage: guides must be
Advantage: excess consumption of Advantage: easy handling of built, still need to backtrack to
storage-space is essentially materials, no forklift is required. cutoff machine
eliminated, very little waste is Disadvantage: the cutoff machine
created. requires longer pieces to work Weighing the advantages and
Disadvantage: the cutoff machine efficiently, so more waste is disadvantages of each of these seven
runs faster than the pull-truder, created. methods, our group developed three
and equipment relocation is 6. Feed rods into a tube leading to that we thought were the most viable
required. the cutoff machine options. Alternatives 3 and 4 both
4. Cutoff at building-length and store Advantage: this is a continuous involve matching the pull-truder speed
overhead process with no cutoff required. to that of the cutoff machine, and the
Advantage: less waste is created Disadvantage: the pull-truder group felt that this would be neither
than with the current method. speed does not match the speed of efficient nor effective. Therefore, the
Disadvantage: very awkward to the cutoff machine, and the tube group accepted alternative two (Figure
carry out, overhead racks must be system must also be constructed. 4), to use the large spools as a new
constructed over the entire length 7. Fold as needed (like an storage method.

Figure 3. Seven alternatives

Figure 4. Process at a glance for the best alternative

5
 Journal of Industrial Technology • Volume 16, Number 1 • November 1999 to January 2000 • www.nait.org

Step 5. Evaluate and select the best Kaizen team, a simulation was under- attention, and that was the cutoff
solution taken. The team decided to see if it was process. Currently, Company A stores
The best of these solutions for the possible to reduce the number of a large amount of 107-foot rods. By
storage of the material is the spool employees required to run the injection implementing the reel system, a
system, alternative number two. Three molder without a significant loss of reduction in space used in the building,
rods are extruded from the pull-truder. output. To do this, the team used material-handling costs, and also lower
Using this alternative, each rod is ProModel, one of the most powerful scrap rates can be expected. The reel
wound on a spool two feet wide having simulators with the animation function system is something that can be made
a six-foot center diameter. The rods are and an easy-to-use interface. The in-house or purchased from an outside
3/8ths of an inch wide, so each layer of process and its results are shown in vendor. It was proposed that at least
the spool would hold 64 wraps of the Table 1. If the results of the simulation two sets of reels be implemented,
rod. With a 6-foot center diameter, are positive, cost justification of the allowing plenty of storage room in case
each turn around the spool would hold new method is needed for presenting the cutoff machine breaks down in the
37.7 feet of rod. 64 turns around the the financial goals of the top managers setup procedure.
spool would hold 2412.74 feet of rod. or vice-presidents.
The pull-truder extrudes the rod at a Conclusion
rate of 3.5 inches per minute, 24 hours Step 7. Cost justification and From this case study, it is apparent
a day. Three spools winding rods for a accomplishments that Company A can benefit from lean
period of 24 hours would accumulate Table 2 (page 7) shows the cost thinking. It is also apparent that many
15,120 feet of rod. justification. As is obvious, a large organizations could gain from utilizing
After the rod is produced, it is reduction in cost is expected by the lean thinking approach. However,
transported to the cut-off saw, which implementing this procedure. the major components of Kaizen are the
cuts notches in the rod and then cuts it use of teams, the use of problem-solving
to a specified length. The cut-off Step 8. Results and analysis tools, and an orientation to the lean
machine usually runs for 2 shifts a day, Company A is a growing company, thinking philosophy to reduce muda.
for a total of 15 hours. In those 15 and because of this they need to find a Exercises such as the one described in
hours, the cut-off machine can run means to improve their current process. this paper could be used within existing
28,290 feet of rod through it, six rods Anyone can simply add more equipment courses in all manufacturing-focused
at a time. In the current process, these and personnel, but a special effort is industrial technology programs to assure
rods are 107 feet long. Each time a rod required on all levels of production to that graduates are sufficiently familiar
is loaded and fed far enough into the decipher where the problems are and with this important thrust.
cut-off machine, an average of about 7 how to fix them. A major advantage to It is the authors’ belief that the
feet of each rod is wasted. The cut-off fixing these problems is that it almost inclusion of the Kaizen approach in
is capable of running 270 rods per day. always results in a more refined and Industrial Technology curricula could
A waste of seven feet from each of 270 efficient process, thus increasing profits not only benefit our graduates in future
rods forms a total waste of approxi- and outputs without incurring the
mately 1900 feet per day, approxi- significant cost of buying new machinery.
mately 6.5% of the total product. As stated earlier in the paper, one
Using the spool system, the cut-off area of the plant needed immediate
machine is loaded only once a day.
Each spool would still create 7 feet of Table 1. Compare of the ProModel results of original and new methods
waste, but this waste is incurred only
when the spools are changed, rather Current Layout New Layout
than in every cutting, as was the case (4 Machines and 4 Workers) (4 Machines and 2 Workers)
with the previous process. If spools are Simulation Time 7 Hours 30 Minutes
changed only once per day, only 42
feet (7 feet of waste ´ 6 rods) of waste Average Percentage in
is created per day, or 0.15% of the total Use of Workers 15.14 29.57
product. This is an improvement of Average Percentage of
about 97.7%. Idle of Workers 67.35 37.34
Average Percentage of
Step 6. Simulation and evaluation Travel of Workers 17.52 33.10
Simulation is well recognized as a
very useful technique for designing and Average Percentage of
evaluating manufacturing facilities Use of Molders 67.80 69.41
(Chan and Smith, 1994). To confirm Average Seconds per
the possibility of implementing the Entry of Input 1,314 1,438
alternative method abstracted by the Total Output 8,744 8,490

6
 Journal of Industrial Technology • Volume 16, Number 1 • November 1999 to January 2000 • www.nait.org

employment, but it could also improve Reference 4. Dugger, J. C. & Teegarden, J.

the understanding of this technique in 1. S. Ashley, “Manufacturing Firms (1997). Manufacturing and indus-
manufacturing settings across the Face the Future,” Mechanical trial technology: a beneficial
United States. As cooperation between Engineering, 119:6, June 1997, pp. alliance of the future. Journal of
industries and educational institutions 70-74. Industrial Technology, 14(1), 37-41.
increases, this type of instruction could 2. Chan, E.T.S., & Smith, A.M. 5. Imai, M. (1986). Kaizen: The key to
also further reduce the gap between (1994). Simulation approach to Japan’s competitive success. New
educational practice and industrial need assembly line modification: a case York: Random House.
study. Journal of Manufacturing 6. Womack, J. P. & Jones, D. T.
Systems, 12, 239 – 245. (1996). Lean thinking. New York:
3. Cheser, R. (1995, April). Kaizen is Simon & Schuster.
more than continuous improvement.
Quality Progress, 23 – 25.

Table 2. Cost Justification

Saving for Work In-Process Improvement
1 Loss of rod for cut off setup ever 107 ft 7 ft/rod
2 Amount of rods per day 270 rod/day
3 Loss of rod per spool (Initial setup cutt off) 7 ft/spool
4 Amount of spools per day 6 spool
5 Rod saving per day 1*2 - 3*4 1,848 $/day
6 Material cost per feet 0.192 $/ft
7 Saving per day 5*6 354.816 $/day
8 Working days per year 250 days
9 Saving per year 7*8 88,704 $

Cost for Implement of Reel System

10 Setup cost per reel system 1,000 $/system
11 Minimum requirement in setup 12 system
12 Minimum setup cost for reel system 10*11 12,000 $

Saving For Changing Injection Molders to Two-Operators

13 Salary per hour for one worker 8.00 $/hour
14 Working hour per day
15 Number of changed workers 2 worker
16 Saving per year 8*13*14*15 32,000 $

Cost due to Small Loss in Productivity

17 Difference of output of 4 worker 4 machine and 2 worker 4 machine system 254 shift
18 Amount of rods for connector 0.5 ft/cont.
19 Amount of connectors per day 254 cont./day
20 Lost rods per day 18*19 127 ft/day
21 Cost for lost rods per day 6*20 24.384 $/day
22 Cost for lost rods per year 8*21 6,096 $

Total
23 Saving for Work In-Process Improvement 9 88,704 $
24 Cost for Implement of Reel System 12 12,000 $
25 Saving For Changing Injection Molders to Two-Operators 16 32,000 $
26 Cost due to Small Loss in Productivity 22 6,096 $
27 Total Saving for First Year 23 - 24 + 25 - 26 102,608 $
28 Total Saving for Following Year 23+25-26 114,608 $