title = "Kaizen and Continuous Improvement on the Floor"

content = """
Kaizen is a Japanese term meaning "change for the better" or "continuous improvement." At Ridgecrest Metalworks, kaizen is not a periodic event—it is a daily expectation that every operator and supervisor will identify small opportunities to improve their work, eliminate waste, and make the workplace safer and more efficient.

**Kaizen philosophy.** The underlying belief is that the people doing the work are the most knowledgeable about how to improve it. Top-down improvement driven solely by management or engineers misses the practical insights that operators accumulate through daily experience. Effective kaizen taps operator knowledge systematically.

**Types of kaizen activities.**

1. **Immediate kaizen (point kaizen).** Small improvements an operator or supervisor can implement immediately in their own work area without a project team or significant investment. Examples: reorganizing a tool shadow board to reduce reach distance; adding a label to a rack shelf that previously had none; adjusting a machine stop to eliminate a measurement step. These are implemented on the spot and documented in the improvement log.

2. **Kaizen events (kaizen blitz).** A focused 3–5 day team effort on a specific problem in a specific area. A cross-functional team including the cell operators, supervisor, an engineer, and a QA or maintenance member spends the week analyzing the current state, piloting changes, and standardizing improvements. Common kaizen event targets: setup reduction (SMED), flow redesign, 5S implementation, defect elimination.

3. **Value stream improvement projects.** Longer-duration improvements spanning multiple work centers or departments, typically managed as a formal project. Results from value stream mapping exercises.

**Kaizen at Ridgecrest.** Each cell has a monthly kaizen target: at least two documented improvements per month per cell. Improvements are logged on the cell's improvement board (problem, countermeasure, owner, completion date, result measured). Closed improvements are reviewed in the monthly operations review.

**Operator participation.** Any operator can submit a kaizen idea on the improvement card available at each cell. The supervisor reviews every card within 3 business days and provides feedback—either an implementation plan or a rationale for rejection. No idea is dismissed without explanation.

**Sustaining improvements.** An improvement not sustained is worse than no improvement, because it consumes time and creates cynicism. After a kaizen change, the relevant SOP is updated, the change is communicated to all shifts, and a 30-day follow-up audit confirms the improvement is holding.
"""

version = "0.0.1"
