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Lesson 3: The Compounding Effect

<1 min

About This Lesson

Show the math behind why small improvements matter.

Small Changes, Big Results

<1 min

Kaizen or Not?

Classify each scenario. Is this an example of Kaizen thinking, or not?

Kaizen Thinking
Not Kaizen

A machinist notices her tool keeps falling off the magnetic holder. She tries a different holder position and it works better.

A team waits for the annual improvement event to address a setup problem they've been dealing with for months.

An operator creates a laminated reference card for the 5 most common job setups because he was tired of looking up the same information.

A supervisor hires consultants to redesign the entire cell layout without asking the operators for input.

During a slow moment, a cell lead moves a trash can closer to the deburring station because she noticed operators walking to throw away chips.

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67%
Annual Improvement from 1% Weekly Gains

Small improvements compound exponentially. 1% better each week means 67% better in a year. The math is on your side.

Source: Compound improvement calculation: 1.01^52 = 1.67
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