OlyKraut Kaizen

Kaizen: Japanese for "improvement", or "change for the better" refers to philosophy or practices that focus upon continuous improvement of processes in manufacturing, engineering, and business management.

Sauerkraut: directly translated: "sour cabbage", is finely cut cabbage that has been fermented by various lactic acid bacteria

OlyKraut: Awesome, locally owned sauerkraut business in Olympia, Washington owned by one of my BGI classmates

This was the extent of my kaizen and sauerkraut knowledge at the BGI benefit auction last fall. However, it did not stop me from joining forces with two other classmates and bidding on a “training day” to learn how kaizen works when applied to a real world business. After our day long analysis at OlyKraut, I can now confidently say I know much more than I did at the auction.

Before ever setting foot in the OlyKraut kitchen, we heard an in-depth presentation where the owner explained her process and workflow, and how she viewed the critical tasks. It was great to get her perspective on what the challenges and opportunities were, and also develop a mental picture of what we might find. By going into the operation with a rough understanding of the process, it was much easier to plug in and observe.

And boy did we observe! Our awesome coach Megan gave us some tips and best practices of how to effectively observe so that we would actually be able to derive value from our observations. Initially, we all walked the facility, drawing out the physical layout of equipment, people, storage, and well, EVERYTHING. We drew out things that were not even part of the OlyKraut process/materials, but since they were in the space, they indirectly impact the process that OlyKraut can use.

Our observations started when the sauerkraut process started. With 5-7 people working in the warehouse, we had our hands full with observation opportunities, so Megan split us up to divide and conquer. There were two main tasks associated with observation of the first full batch being made. First was movement tracking (where does a worker physically move in the space and when), and second was timing. Armed with stopwatches and sketches, we were ready to go. However, as we watched the workers, it became apparent that it would be impossible to individually time each movement and how long it took (time to weigh a box of cabbage, time to move the box from the cart to the scale etc), so Megan threw us a tip: just start the watch and record the time a new action takes place. This way the time runs for the entire process, and recording becomes your main priority. It also takes away the chance you will forget to start/stop the watch.

So off we went. As we timed and mapped movement, Megan circulated around asking us for observations. We discussed a few items here and there, during the observation, but then really worked through change suggestions after we all came back together. Our main focus was identifying waste.

Waste: Any action, process, or product that adds cost without adding value, as perceived by the customer.

Using this definition, few major recommendations were obvious:

·        Workers worked incredibly hard and non-stop, but the cabbage was just sitting there

·        A piece of critical equipment was being used for two jobs, one which was not adding any value to the process

·        Lots of movement, walking in the process (35 minutes of our hours long observation of one worker was walking!)

·        Inefficient use of space

·        Opportunity for batching

·        Timing all of these actions gave us concrete numbers to justify previously held design assumptions driving the timing and current process were incorrect

Observing the sitting cabbage was a great place to start our conversation with OlyKraut. It is also a great topic for company implementers to frame our feedback to workers to minimize discomfort that we are out to call out their inefficiency. By focusing on observable waste, and process oriented recommendations, it is clear that it was the workspace configuration and flow of work creating waste, not a lack of their hard work.

We left OlyKraut a short list of recommendations for implementation, and it will be exciting to see how they play out over the next few months, and if the team of workers on staff will come up with more efficiencies of their own.

In the end, we hope our help can give extra efficiency to OlyKraut and extra boost its profitability!