Makigami ...

and the Art of Systemic Process Improvement

Makigami literally means: 'Role of Paper' in Japanese.

But it is also the 'Action Script' to the Ninja (who holds this as role of paper in front of him).
It contains 'the Golden Rules' -the basic principles- the actions that really matter...

On the left you see "The mother of all Makigami's

made in 1996 by Okamura-san at Fujico (Japan).
Compare the size of the door at the left!

After 10 years it is still being improved, as we cou

see during a visit in December, 2006.
The Makigami's being developed in Europe are
modified to suite our needs; we use post-its and
need a different layout (Japanese writing allows
vertical text)
Basically it consist of 4 area's:
1. Activities performed by different parties
2. Documents/media used in communication
3. Time-analysis
4. Identified problems

Due to an enhanced application of the technique,

nowadays it is possible to make quite deep analys
of the current state and redesign for the future
state, within as little as one week

Most of such weeks are performed as

'boosterweeks' where up to 6 simultaneous cross
functional teams go through the process,
presenting a 100-day implementation plan at the
end of the week.

Although it is a simple tool and could be use

as such, it is the basic vehicle towards a
completely different approach of support- an
administrative organisations. It is the keyinstrument towards a systemic -or if you wis
a holistic- view of the organisation and its
surrounding; the true next level of successfu
organisations.

The Purpose of Makigami

Purposes

The Makigami process map, visualizes the current process in offices,

laboratories, hospitals: Any place where the 'product' is not directly
visible or physical.
An office is a factory for information. Since the product -and the wast- is
not directly visible, it ussually has even more losses than any other
factory. The same goes for other service providers.
Makigami Process Mapping is used to analyze and visualize any
'business' process and is very suitable to use in environments, where
processes are usually not transparent.
Any of the 7 deadly losses may (and will) become visible.
The Makigami Process Map also can be used to improve the investigated
process by designing a future state map after taking away the identified
losses.

Systemic
Thinking

The Makigami process map, is the first, basic technique in a wider

approach to bring an organisation towards 'systemic thinking and
working'.
Dr Deming once said:
'In only 6% of the situations where something goes wrong,
it can directly be assigned to a person.
In the other 94% is due to the system where this person was acting in'
In other words: We place people in systems where the system invites us
to make mistakes rather then preventing them...
If we study this carefully, the truth seams to be that in 100% of adverse
effects this seams to be the case, because people always act according
to the system they are being placed into...

Improvements with Makigami

Improvements

In virtually any value adding process, throughput time can dramatically be

improve since 95 to 99,5% of the time is non-value adding..
Lots of transfer points (one desk to the other) can be eliminated.
Historically grown processes can become transparent, fast and more stabile by
taking out the identified losses.
Issue
Throughput time

Improvement
50% - 90% faster

Transfers
Output errors

90% less
90% - 100% less

Value added time

If the time stays the same, quality of output goes

drastically up. For the same output, the VA time
sometimes can go down 25% or more.

Opportunity

The time that has become available can be reinvested in the addition of extra
value - things we would like to do, but did not find the time for - or it can be used
for new loss-reduction activities.
In this way the negative spiral of 'starvation due to cost-cutting' can be turned
around in 'profit growth due to becoming better and better' -in other words real
continuous improvement.