This is based on the Power of Kaizen program – a workplace improvement program. If there is something that bugs you within our organization that is inefficient and you can find a solution that is:
- quick to implement
- easy and obvious
- not a huge time or monetary investment
- input not needed from owners
We want to avoid paralysis by analysis so keeping things simple is the name of the game. Once you see a problem and find a solution, you are empowered and expected to go ahead and eliminate it. This will give you the gift of time and some frustration removal. It will compound your time (and hopefully others) as we go throughout the year.
For example, let’s say that you have to spend 2 minutes every day looking for your box cutter because your or someone else used it elsewhere. If we setup a system where each station has a container that contains a box-cutter and at the end of every day it gets back into its spot..that is 2 minutes x 5 days a week * 48 weeks per year = 480 saved minutes (not to mention the removal of frustration)
Finding an exacto blade is not a value-added task – its not helping the business be more profitable, its not helping customers be more satisfied, etc. If we can translate that 480 minutes into value-added time (ex. production time that we are getting paid for), that will add $800 to our bottom line. If we all contributed 2min of daily savings of non-value-added time, the first year we would save 192 hours and be able to convert $19K per year. And some hours are more like 10x….if I have 1 extra hour that I can do a sales meeting, often that will lead to 10K in sales.
NOTE: Obviously, not all of our improvements are going to save 2min per day but some may save 5min per month, 1 hour/year, etc.
We would like to ask that every team member implement at least 2 workplace improvements each month. Each time you make an improvement, we’ll have you fill out the improvement form on our website so we can keep a monthly and annual tally of how many improvements we have made as a business. If each person makes 2 improvements per month and we have about 10 team members, that is 240 improvements each year. Examples are:
- Improved SOP’s
- Workspace organization
- Organizational systems
- Email templates
Process:
- Keep your eyes open for improvement opportunities.
- Once you find one, figure out a solution (based on the 4 principles above)
- If the solution doesn’t involve money, implement it and fill out this form.
- If the solution does involve money, email to product link to Steve & Comfort for approval and purchasing. NOTE: this needs to be the exact link you want us to purchase so that we don’t have to spend time researching ourselves.
- BONUS: Everyone gets to pick out a $5 gift card each month out of our “job well done box”