Who should be following up on kaizen (or improvement suggestions)? Is it the group leader, a support group (like our Lean facilitating team) or someone else? In our factory, around 20% of suggestions (like machine modifications) handed in by operators cannot be implemented by the person suggesting it and therefore need support and resources from our technical staff.
In our current structure our Group Leaders are assigned to facilitate and follow up on these type of kaizens for their group, conform the functional structure of the organization. However, with most of our group leaders on holiday, our Lean team temporarily facilitates and checks the progress of all suggestions and discusses one a day in our daily tier three meeting where support groups are available to give their opinion.
To me, this seems to be more efficient than having group leaders in their shift responsible for follow-up, while their shift only overlaps the day-shift 2 out of 6 working days. So today, I favor a centralized support group which is responsible for follow-up of all kaizens, instead of 5 different group leaders who each have to follow-up on the kaizens of their group.
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