Using Hoshin Kanri to Improve the Value
Stream
Elizabeth A. Cudney
Missouri University of Science and Technology, Rolla, USA
ISBN: 978-1-4200-8423-8, 2009, 160 pp., Soft Cover
"... provides a clear and concise view of how to best use hoshin kanri to drive
improvement and realize the level of results organizations want and need. This
book should be required reading for all business executives."
- Karen Martin, author of The Kaizen Event Planner
While value stream mapping is now accepted as a tool for identifying waste, future
state mapping presents greater challenges. Achieving the full implementation pictured
in an enhanced future state map is far more complex than its development.
Hoshin kanri can help. This method encourages employees to incorporate performance
metrics to reach the root cause of problems before searching for solutions and teaches them how
to promote the achievement of sustainable implementation. Though developed in Japan this technique is
based on Deming's classic PDCA (Plan-Do-Check-Act) improvement cycle. A number of Deming Prize winners
credit hoshin kanri as being key to their business success.
