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Kobetsu Kaizen its value and application
Andrea Stov
Department of Integrated Management
Faculty of Metallurgy, TUKE
Koice, Slovak Republic
andrea.sutoova@tuke.sk
AbstractPaper deals with the Kobetsu Kaizen approach, which
is an important pillar of TPM. The paper describes the value of
this approach and its implementation process. The case study is
focused on the analysis of breakdown losses on the printing press
and mentions the improvements which were applied to minimize
these losses.
Keywords - Total Productive Maintenance (TPM); Kobetsu
Kaizen; Overall Equipment Effectiveness (OEE) ; 16 Major Losses
I. INTRODUCTION
In todays highly dynamic and rapidly changing
environment, the global competition among organizations has
led to higher demands on the manufacturing organizations.
The rapidly changing global marketplace calls for
improvements in a companys performance by focusing on
cost cutting, increasing productivity levels, quality and
guaranteeing deliveries in order to satisfy customers [4].
Efficiency and effectiveness of equipment plays a dominant
role in manufacturing industry to determine the performance
of the organizational production function as well as the level
of organization`s success [2]. These facts provide impetus for
adopting effective and efficient maintenance strategies. Total
Productive Maintenance (TPM) is a maintenance approach
that optimizes equipment effectiveness, eliminates
breakdowns, losses and promotes autonomous maintenance by
operators through day-to-day activities involving total
workforce [1]. The goal of the TPM program is to markedly
increase production while, at the same time, increasing
employee morale and job satisfaction. TPM brings
maintenance into focus as a necessary and vitally important
part of the business. It is no longer regarded as a non-profit
activity. The basic practices of TPM are often called the pillars
or elements of TPM. The core TPM initiatives classified into
eight TPM pillars or activities for accomplishing the
manufacturing performance improvements include
Autonomous Maintenance; Kobetsu Kaizen (Focused
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tefan Markulik
Department of Safety and Quality
Faculty of Mechanical Engineering, TUKE
Koice, Slovak Republic
stefan.markulik@tuke.sk
Marek olc
Department of Integrated Management
Faculty of Metallurgy, TUKE
Koice, Slovak Republic
marek.solc@tuke.sk
Improvement); Planned Maintenance; Quality Maintenance;
Education and Training; Office TPM; Development
Management; and Safety, Health and Environment [6].
One of the key essences of TPM is to eliminate losses
associated with the production system, which is the issue of
Kobetsu Kaizen pillar. Kobetsu Kaizen is one of the original
pillars and is considered to be a mother of other pillars.
II. TPM`S KOBETSU KAIZEN PILLAR
A. Characteristic and Purposes of Kobetsu Kaizen
"Kai" means change, and "Zen" means good (for the better).
Kaizen is the opposite of big spectacular innovations. Kaizen
is small improvements carried out on a continual basis and
involves all people in the organization. Kaizen requires no or
little investment [3] Kaizen is a culture of sustained continual
improvement focusing on eliminating losses in all systems and
processes of an organization. While kaizen usually delivers
small improvements, the culture of continual aligned small
improvements and standardization yields large results in the
form of compound productivity improvement.
Kobetsu Kaizen uses a special event approach that focuses
on improvements associated with machines and is linked to the
application of TPM. Kobetsu Kaizen begins with an up-front
planning activity that focuses its application where it will have
the greatest effect within a business and defines a project that
analyses machine operations information, uncovers waste, uses
a form of root cause analysis (e.g., the 5 Why approach) to
discover the causes of waste, applies tools to remove waste,
and measures results. Kobetsu Kaizen is aimed at improving
production effectiveness by systematic identification and
elimination of losses using various Kaizen tools (PM analysis,
5-Why analysis, Summary of losses, Kaizen register, Kaizen
summary sheet, ect.) [5]. Important aspects of Kobetsu Kaizen
are people motivation as well as their education and training.
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Kobetsu Kaizen effort is closely related to Education and prioritising losses based on analyzing the losses that
Training pillar, Autonomous Maintenance, Planned affect OEE, according to number of occurrence and
Maintenance and other pillars of TPM. duration of loss or type of loss (sporadic or chronic),
B. Clasification of losses analyzing causes application of analytical tools (PM
In the initial stages, TPM initiatives focus upon addressing analysis, FTA, FMEA, Why-why analysis, seven
six major losses, which are considered significant in lowering quality management tools, etc.) to stratify and analyze
causes,
the efficiency of the production system. These losses are
considered in the calculation of Overall Equipment improvements planning (comparing cost-effectiveness
Effectiveness (OEE), which has become widely accepted as a of alternative proposals, considering possible harmful
quantitative tool essential for measurement of productivity in effects and disadvantages),
manufacturing operations (Fig. 1).
implementing improvements,
checking results.

III. CASE STUDY

Figure 1. Calculation of OEE [2].
In all, Kobetsu Kaizen takes into consideration 16 major
losses impeding the manufacturing performance and
efficiency. These losses are categorized into the three
categories shown in TAB. 1.
The study was realized in the organization dealing with
production and selling of packaging materials for food
industry. The aim of the study was to identify and eliminate
breakdown causes of printing presses. The breakdown losses
were considered a priority for solution to enhance availability
of the equipment.
In order to identify significant failure units of the
equipment, maintenance records from the last two months
were analyzed. Pareto diagram was used for data analysis
(Fig. 2). The units causing the most significant downtimes
were pressure rollers and cooling drums. The average printing
press production of packaging film is 200m per minute. The
loss of the packaging film production attributed to the most
significant equipment units was 336800m.

TABLE I. CATEGORIZATION OF 16 MAJOR LOSSES [2]

Loss Category
1. Failure loss - Breakdown loss
2. Setup / adjustment loss
3. Start up loss
4. Minor stoppage / Idling loss Losses that impede
5. Speed loss equipment efficiency
6. Defect / rework loss
7. Scheduled downtime loss
8. Tool changeover loss
9. Management loss
10. Operating motion loss
Loses that impede human
11. Line organization loss
work efficiency
12. Logistic loss
13. Measurement and adjustment loss
14. Energy loss
Loses that impede effective
15. Consumables (jig, tool, die) loss
use of production resources
16. Yield loss.
Figure 2. Pareto analysis of downtimes by equipment units
C. Implementation of Kobetsu Kaizen
Kobetsu Kaizen implementation process consists of
following steps [7]: The breakdown causes of these units were further analyzed
by Ishikawa diagrams using brainsotorming attended by
selecting the of improvement topic and project team superiors, maintenance workers and operators. The following
formation - composed of people such as production Fig. 3 shows Ishikawa diagram for pressure roller and Fig. 4
engineers, maintenance personnel and operators. Ishikawa diagram for cooling drum.
identification and classification of losses,

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In the case of cooling drum the poor quality bearings were

Method Man identified as the most significant cause. Improvements were
Lack of cooperation realized by replacing the bearings.
Incorrect exchange between operators
method of slew and maintenance Four months after improvements implementation the
Inattention effectiveness of improvements was checked. Data from
Incorrect Operators
adjustment of operators aren`t trained
maintenance records were analyzed from two months. There
Pressure
was a 78% decrease of downtimes caused by pressure rollers
roller and 84% decrease of downtimes caused by cooling drums.
Equipment
wear ACKNOWLEDGMENT
Missing cuff
This paper was supported by grant project VEGA No.
Dirty 1/0004/11.
guiding bars

REFERENCES
Machine Material
[1] B. Bhadury, (2000), "Management of productivity through TPM",
Productivity, Vol. 41, No. 2, pp 240-251.
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literature review and directions", International Journal of Quality &
During brainstorming the guiding bars were identified as a Reliability Management, Vol. 25, No. 7, pp.709 756.
most significant problem causing pressure roller breakdowns. [3] K. Teplick, K. ulkov, (2011) "Kaizen and its applying during cost
5 - Why method was used in order to identify the core root of decreasing in process of production firm maintenance , Annals of
Faculty Engineering Hunedoara, Vol. 9, No. 3, pp. 1-7.
guiding bars smear: [4] M. Dogra, V. S. Sharma, A. Sachdeva and J. S. Dureja, (2011) "TPM- a
Why the guiding bars are dirty? key strategy for productivity improvement in process industry", Journal
of Engineering Science and Technology, Vol. 6, Iss: 1, pp. 1-16.
Because they weren`t cleaned. Why? [5] P. M. Charantimath , Total Quality Management, 2nd ed., Singapore:
Because maintenance worker don`t know when to Pearson Education, 2011.
clean it. Why? [6] Rodrigues, M. and Hatakeyama, K. (2006), Analysis of the fall of TPM
Because it is no instruction for cleaning. Why? in companies, Journal of Materials Processing Technology, Vol. 179
Nos 1-3, pp. 276-9.
Because the instruction wasn`t developed.
[7] T. Suzuki, TPM in process industry, 1st ed., New York: Productivity
For the elimination of identified problem, the cleaning form Press,1994.
was developed, which consists of following issues:
Object of cleaning,
Period of cleaning,
Cleaning method,
Cleaners,
Responsible person,
Date of cleaning.

Environment Man
Lack of cooperation
High between operators
humidity and maintenance
Unsuitable
Inattention
temperature of operators
Cooling
drum
Inappropriate
material of pin
Poor quality Incorrect
bearings diagnostic

Material Measurement

Figure 4. Ishikawa diagram for Colling drum

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