Our Process
Real change starts with leadership actually leading it, not delegating it. Here's exactly how we build that into every engagement.
Leadership
Sustainable change starts at the top, not with a memo, with real, visible ownership. Every engagement begins with an executive oversight committee, the CEO and their direct reports, who define clear expected outcomes, commit the resources to reach them, and are personally trained and certified before the first improvement event ever happens. The CEO builds a visibility wall in a central, unavoidable location, every chart, every graph, every result gets posted there, and leads the weekly review meeting in that room. Skip this step, and the effort typically stalls: insight without authority just produces good intentions and wasted resources.
The Kaizen Promotion Office
Alongside leadership, every organization needs a dedicated team keeping the work moving day to day. We call this the Kaizen Promotion Office, or KPO. It might start as one person; it grows as the effort does. This team schedules events, coordinates logistics, and ensures every planned improvement actually happens on standard work, not just on paper. By the end of an engagement, your KPO becomes your own in-house Lean experts, owning the certification process going forward without needing us in the room.
How Training Actually Works
Training isn't lecture-and-forget. Every course combines short instructional sessions with real evidence and case review, hands-on simulation, and immediate application in an actual improvement event, adult learning by doing, not just by watching. Clear, step-by-step materials go home with every participant, so the method is repeatable long after the session ends.
The Certification Path
1
Basic
Value stream mapping, standard operations, 5S, Training Within Industry, and a first Rapid Process Improvement Workshop (RPIW), a live, two-week event: one week collecting real data, one week redesigning the process itself.
2
Intermediate
Setup reduction, continuous flow, Kanban, mistake-proofing, visual controls, and total productive maintenance, the deeper toolkit for sustaining what Basic starts.
3
Lean Leader
Process ownership, measurement, Hoshin Kanri strategic planning, and 3P, our method for major structural redesign, not incremental fixes. This is also the level where site visits to other Lean transformations, and for select participants, hands-on training in Japan, become part of the path.