Bob Emiliani's latest book, Real Lean (vol. 6), contains a great interview with former Wiremold CEO Art Byrne, who has more than 30 years of experience leading Lean very successfully. Byrne says that Lean is 95 percent done wrong. Only five to seven percent of manufacturers have been doing Lean correctly and sustainably.

Most organizations find that Lean/kaizen drops off fairly quickly after only a few years of initial successes. I often point out that it takes at least two years to really build a Lean culture. Past that point, people tend to forget their successes and revert back to their short-term thinking.

There are ways to prevent the loss of Lean/kaizen momentum:
• Ask customers to help. Most customers with a supplier development program will be delighted to offer their help. Those without their own Lean or kaizen capability may actually engage you to help them, creating new supply chain collaboration opportunities. At the very least, clearly grasping customer expectations can help reset your own targets and give you new focus for kaizen.
• Set audacious targets. Think bigger than you normally would. Toyota routinely sets targets that require "cost reduction by half" and other ridiculous things. This helps blow away the more mundane excuses rooted in today's realities, which over time we come to believe are firm and unchanging (i.e. the best we can do). Once the platform has been set on fire, a healthy sense of urgency has been instilled and people are serious about climbing the newly visible peak. Allow people to take it a few small, steady steps at a time.
• Assign people dedicated to leading the climb. There may or may not already be people dedicated to Lean, kaizen, six sigma or continuous improvement in an organization that has made progress in kaizen. Having a dedicated person or team to examine why kaizen seems to be stuck, benchmark what others are doing to keep it going, and to build momentum around getting the ball rolling again, is a good idea. Make sure these people have genuine enthusiasm and knowledge of how to do kaizen.
• Visualize your progress. This requires using metrics. Let people know how they are getting on towards the goal. I was on the winning end of a discussion recently to persuade the owner of a successful Lean company to post improvement metrics on the shop floor for all to see. This would not have been appropriate a year or two ago, nor would these metrics have been appreciated and understood. However, after years of progress with kaizen, I believe this is exactly what this company needed at this time to keep the focus on their particular themes for kaizen. Done over a period of years, the visualization of kaizen activities also serves as an early warning sign that the energy is waning, or that we are becoming complacent with our progress.
• Ask people for their ideas. Any company advanced with kaizen will say they already do this, but when quizzed on the gemba, only the best can actually answer "today" when asked, "When is the last time you asked another team member for their kaizen idea?" It is the most obvious, most direct and quickest way to keep kaizen going.
• Involve everyone. Just as there is always more room for improvement in quality, safety and service, there is always someone who has yet to be fully engaged in improvement. Examples may include the janitors, security guards, the landscaping crew or the seasonal workers. It is these people who often see things others miss, have time to think of fresh ideas and also require that we go back to basics when teaching how to do kaizen.
• Blaze your own trail. The martial arts process of shu-ha-ri or "hold-break-leave" applies here. First, we hold or stay true to the kaizen form taught to us by our sensei. Once we have mastered these, we can break away from these routines, making changes to better suit the unique person or organization we are. Then we distance ourselves - move apart from the sensei's way to create our own way or style. In terms of kaizen, this means that there comes a time for following the standard approach, a time for mastering and adapting it, and a time for refining our own way of doing kaizen.

The ultimate test of whether one can keep kaizen going is to become the sensei and continue teaching others.

Dr. Timothy Hill is an Industrial and Organizational Psychologist and Certified Lean Six Sigma Black Belt with global expertise in Human Resources/Human Capital. He can be reached at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .