Continuous Improvement Toolkit

Effective Tools for Business and Life!

Examples

Welcome to our Examples section!

The aim of this section is to bring many of the examples presented throughout the website in one place. It is worth noting that the majority of these examples are real and reflect actual scenarios. You can easily save these images, share them with others, or PIN them to your Pinterest account for future reference.

Examples Gallery

5 whys — Yokoten is a two-way exchange of best practice information between two or more entities and can be a powerful tool for driving world-class performance.

5 whys — This is an example of a template that can be used to document your best practices before being shared with other teams.

This is a documented best practice that was created by an operator in a manufacturing company.

Standard Work — A Standard Work Chart is an example of a visual standard work document. It is used to help with the layout and arrangement of your operation.

Standard Work — SOP — This is an example of a template that can be used to document your standard operating procedure (SOP) for any of your business processes.

Standard Work — SOP — This example illustrates an SOP which was created for the label changeover process in a manufacturing facility.

Standard Work — SOP — This is an example of an SOP which was created for the order process in a service environment.

Observation — Gemba — Customer observation forms can be used to truly understand the viewpoint of customers and how they experience your products and services.

Observation — Gemba — Process observation forms can be used to record the observed data, interview responses, improvement opportunities, and any other useful information.

Visual Management — Safety — Example of visual management in a production line. 1. Safety sign 2. Andon lights 3. Floor marking 4. Machine identity 5. Visual instructions 6. Gauge marking.

Visual Management — Safety — Safety visuals often use bright coloring to attract attention.

Visual Management — Floor marking is used to improve the layout of the workplace and mark critical safety and security areas.

Visual Management — Pipe marking communicates all the necessary information about the pipelines including the content, direction and flow rate. Arrows are used to indicate the flow direction while colors often indicate the nature of the content.

Visual Management - Traffic Light Assessment — Andon — Andon lights are powerful visual tools which are installed on production machines to indicate their current status. They are very useful in bringing immediate attention to problems as soon as they arise.

5 Whys — Why-Why Diagram — Tree Diagram — A restaurant team has constructed a why-why diagram to resolve a complaint regarding the increased number of customer complaints about the taste of the coffee they make.