1st Edition

The 7 Kata Toyota Kata, TWI, and Lean Training

By Conrad Soltero, Patrice Boutier Copyright 2012
    191 Pages 36 B/W Illustrations
    by Productivity Press

    192 Pages
    by Productivity Press

    The biggest competitive advantage an organization can achieve comes from the synergies created by employees skilled in enhancing organizational dynamics. The Seven Kata: Toyota Kata, TWI, and Lean Training supplies time-tested tools and advice to help readers adapt to changing conditions and outcompete their rivals. It explains why a mix of the skill sets that Training Within Industry (TWI) and the Toyota Kata (behavior patterns) teach is the ideal recipe to boost organizational synergies and enhance any Lean transformation.

    Winner of a 2013 Shingo Prize for Operational Excellence!

    Bridging the kata/TWI nexus, the book lays out a road map for Lean success. It devotes a chapter to each of the Seven Kata and suggests possible courses of action dependent on your organization’s strengths and constraints. Bringing together valuable information on many of the disjointed Lean practices, it explains key Lean concepts, including gemba walks, genchi gembutsu, and PDCA.

    After introducing kata, it reveals the different kata inherent in the three major TWI courses and the TWI Job Safety course. It illustrates the value stream analysis relationship to the kata and the kata relationship to TWI. It also demonstrates how to use kata to solve the problems identified in your value stream analysis while simultaneously conditioning your employees’ adaptive thinking patterns.

    Supplying a clear understanding of exactly where the seven kata apply in your Lean journey, the authors include helpful guidelines for coaching a kata. They also highlight mistakes they have experienced or witnessed so you can avoid the same pitfalls. As globalism continues to make management’s organizational skills a competitive differentiator, this book provides you with the tools to use the seven kata to place your organization on a discernible path towards operational excellence.

    Listen to what Pat Boutier has to say about The Seven Kata.

    Part One Part Two

    Weapons for the Economic Warrior
    Skills, Not Tools
    Toyota’s Connective Tissue
    Skills of the Warrior
    Training Within Industry’s Japanese Connection
    Lean’s Formula: Syncretism and Ritual
    Getting Started
    A Word of Warning to Top Management

    The Improvement Kata: Kaizen
    Means to an End—Kata and Kaizen
    Value Stream Analysis
    Improvement Kata Method
         Coaching the Improvement Kata
         The Five Questions
    Yokoten
    Conclusions

    The Nested Job Instruction Kata: Learn to Teach
    Training to Instruct
         On-the-Job Training Development
         Power of One-on-One
         Quintessential Standard—Demonstrated
    Nested Kata
         Important Step (IS) Kata
         Key Point (KP) Kata
         The Kata for How to Get Ready to Instruct
    From Training Course to Kata
    Conclusions

    The Coaching Kata: Teaching to Learn
    Introduction
    Preceptor Development
    Coaching Philosophy
    Coaching
    Coaching and Improvement Kata Card Revision
    Developing a Kata Culture Using a Training Timetable
         The JR Connection
         Coaching the Problem-Solving Kata
    Conclusion

    The Problem-Solving Kata: Seek to Understand Kata
    Unconsciously Neglecting Problems
    PS Kata
    PS Kata Family
    Training Within Industry Problem-Solving Training
    Six Sigma in Context
    Conclusions

    The Job Relations Kata: The Cultural Fortifier
    Collaboration and Conciliation
    Practicing the JR Kata
    Need for Coaching
         Coaching the JR Kata
    Practicing the JR Kata
         Step 1
         Step 2
         Step 3
         Step 4
         Reflection
    Foundations for Good Relations
    JR Kata and A3 Thinking
    Conclusion

    Job Safety Kata: The Duplex Kata
    JS Improvement Kata
         JS Improvement Kata: Step 1
         JS Improvement Kata: Observations
    JS Problem-Solving Kata
         JS Problem-Solving Kata: Step 2
         JS Problem-Solving Kata: Step 3
         JS Problem-Solving Kata: Step 4
    JI Kata Connection
    A New 5-Why?
    Conclusions

    The Job Methods Kata: Kipling’s Kata
    Introduction
    Relationship of the Improvement and JM Kata
    Coaching
    Proposals and the Nascent Teian Program
    JM Kata
         JM Analysis
         Nemawashi and A3 Thinking
         Continuous Improvement
    Conclusion

    Submit to the Kata
    First Things First
    Adaptive Learning
    Conclusion
    Biographies
    References

    Appendix: A Lean Training Within Industry (TWI) Timeline

    Biography

    Patrice Boutier, Conrad Soltero