**5.2 Teams meetings**

The meetings of the operational teams are events of enormous importance for the sustainability of continuous improvement. The frequency of these meetings is commonly proposed as one meeting per day. In the Kaizen Institute CI model, it is even called Daily Kaizen. Typically the meeting follow a standard agenda lasting 5 minutes and in general terms the objectives of these meetings are: to preserve and improve the cohesion and motivation of the team, to become aware of the state and evolution of performance indicators, to plan the work of the day, to monitor ongoing improvement actions and if necessary to report occurrences. For these meetings to be effective it is necessary for teams to be trained and monitored very closely in the first few weeks. It is necessary that someone with experience accompanies the first meetings giving suggestions and feedback on the content of the agenda

and how to conduct the meeting. At first these meetings tend to take more than 5 minutes and some issues remain un-addressed but as the team gains experience it becomes more effective in managing time and eventually manages to do the whole meeting in about 5 minutes in most cases.

It is important to repeat that the meeting cannot include any kind of blaming or judgment of team members. The spirit of the meeting should always be positive and motivating. It should always be sought to encourage team members to try to identify something that may be preventing them from doing their job better, with less effort and less risk.

In some organizations, workers are trained in coaching and in constructive feedback in order to help creating the perfect atmosphere to approach problems, improvements, and improve motivation and work satisfaction. The well-being of team members should always be valued because respect for the human person has an unquestionable intrinsic value and also because people who feel good can produce better, with more quality and with more safety. It is important to remember what was said in the first article published in English about the Toyota Production System (TPS). In this article it is said that one of the two basic concepts of TPS is "treating workers as being human and with consideration" [1]. It is important that the whole organization breathes awareness of this concept and that it creates standards, routines and practices that materialize this concept and that gradually becomes the culture of the organization.

#### **5.3 Project teams**

The effort for continuous improvement must be widespread throughout the organization. That is true, however, although everyone in the organization must be involved in the constant search for improvement, it is common the need to create temporary teams that aim at significant improvements in the process, also called disruptive changes.

Disruptive project teams are teams designed to introduce disruptive process improvements to clearly improve performance levels and typically lead to changing working standards. These new standards are then followed by natural teams in order to stabilize them. In some companies the main aim of operational teams is to stabilize standards and never improve them. These projects are projects for significant changes in the process, relate to striking/disruptive improvements that result in layout changes, task change, line resizing, technology changes in the process, reduction of product change times, etc. Unlike natural teams that remain stable for a long time these teams are formed when the project begins and is extinguished when the project ends.

These disruptive Kaizen events typically are held for 1 week every 3 months. Kaizen events should start with a well-defined problem, described in a clear and short sentence, to enhance the effectiveness of the event and should also be seen as an investment for their very effective role in training employees [27]. Bastos & Sharman [28] suggest that for there to be significant improvements, this level of action called the disruptive improvements, together with the CI performed by natural teams, has a multiplier effect on the improvement of processes and consequently on the performance and competitiveness of an organization. The main message is that the combination of the two types of efforts for improvement (Continuous and Disruptive Improvement) result much more effectively than just the CI. In contrast Mike Rother [2] argues:

*"… Toyota considers the improvement capability of all the people in an organization the "strength" of a company. From this perspective, then, it is better for an organization's adaptiveness, competitiveness, and survival to have a large group* 

**47**

**Figure 4.**

*Coaching structure of the TK.*

*Continuous Improvement*

**5.4 Coaching**

new workers.

*DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.93638*

Despite that, Mike Rother also argues:

*kaizen workshops are okay but not enough…"*

*of people systematically, methodically, making many small steps of improvement every day rather than a small group doing periodic big projects and events."*

*"… If your business philosophy is to improve, then periodic improvement projects or* 

As in everything in life the CI systems needs be maintained and improved to stay alive. Some kind of structure is necessary to maintain, coach and guide natural teams and promote improvement projects. In the Toyota Kata (TK) model presented by Mike Rother [2] represents how the Toyota CI system works. The role of maintaining the natural teams' moral and focus on seeking perfection is assigned to a coach. The coach's role is very relevant in the TK model since it is up to the Coach to play the main role of maintaining the Toyota culture, maintaining the team's motivation and guiding it to the identification and implementation of improvement actions that ensure learning, clear knowledge of the process and evolution toward challenges and vision. The structure that ensures the sustainability of continuous improvement is represented in **Figure 4** where the coaching structure can be represented. Each team leader meets with his Coach once a day (whenever possible) in front of his team's board for a follow-up session of the actions and evolution of the team always having as support the data that is visually presented on the team board. The team leader's daily sessions with the coach are occasionally accompanied by a second-level coach who will help the first-level coach evolve his coaching skills. When a vacancy for 2nd level coach emerges, the 1st level coach, who is more advanced in terms of coaching skills, will be selected. The vacancy left by the first-level coach will have to be filled by a team leader with more coaching experience and skills. This vacancy in turn will be occupied by the team worker with more leadership skills. In this way the coaches were workers who absorbed Toyota's culture and assumed the responsibility of maintaining it and passing it on to the

*of people systematically, methodically, making many small steps of improvement every day rather than a small group doing periodic big projects and events."*

Despite that, Mike Rother also argues:

*"… If your business philosophy is to improve, then periodic improvement projects or kaizen workshops are okay but not enough…"*
