Implementing the Mizusumashi and Kamishibai scoring models for Vietnamese enterprises – An overview of Mizusumashi and Kamishibai (Part 1)

About Mizusumashi

In small and medium enterprises, employees are often assigned many tasks to get things done, many of which can prevent them from performing well in the standard. Mizusumashi plays the top management role, running all jobs in the production line while being responsible for all operations of the line, the scope before the higher management. Mizusumashi belongs to the group of tools to support production at the right time – Just in time, thereby helping to ensure production stability. Mizusumashi applies successfully when the work under the scope of application must be standardized and have a clear process, attached to responsibility. Work should be standardized before or during the tool’s implementation.

Mizusumashi not only requires knowledge and experience, this position also requires the ability to improve professional knowledge, especially lean production tools. This position requires that the individual needs continuous learning to understand how the production area operates, understand the work of all applicable employees, as well as the challenges faced by the employees. that can be encountered in everyday work.

Thus, looking further, a true Mizusumashi could be the leader, supervisor or manager later on. Choosing a potential individual will not only help them do this important job well, but also put them in a good position to create better value in the future. In addition, they will become an important resource as a lean production coordinator, able to observe the entire production system, identify each related problem in each area to overcome and harmonize. with the entire system.

About Kamishibai

If an enterprise applies multiple management systems, quality productivity tools, and lean production at the same time, Kamishibai is the right choice for making improvements and maintaining both short and long term.

In fact, an enterprise often applies many innovative tools / models such as 5S, TPM, TQM, etc, to bring efficiency improvements in productivity, quality, and cost reduction. This application process will face many difficulties for businesses, but the biggest challenge is to maintain the implementation results in a sustainable way. In order to maintain efficiency, businesses often choose a solution to build an “assessment and inspection” mechanism, hoping that this evaluation process can help provide information as well as create a habit for the model to be performed on regular and precise basis. Kamishibai is a suitable choice for the use of image cards / boards in production management, developed and used in the Toyota production system, as a tool to evaluate the production process of an enterprise. The results of applying Kamishibai are completely visual, so it is easy for relevant managers / supervisors / staff to observe, inspect and identify the role, responsibility of each person in the production and business activities of the business.

According to the Japanese, Kamishibai culture is a culture of respect (Culture of Respect): Enterprises need to apply a culture of “WHY”, not culture of “AI”. This means that businesses applying Kamishibai need to pay attention to the smooth process, not to responsibility, thereby checking and evaluating according to Kamishibai at the enterprise will lead to the common interests of the business. Any problem is taken seriously and thoroughly resolved. That is why not only the manager, even an ordinary worker can stop the entire line if a mistake is found. Kamishibai will help shape company culture: behavioral culture between leaders and employees, among employees; saving; corporate brand protection; trying my best for the job; the spirit of learning from each other.

For all Kamishibai related employees at the enterprise, it is necessary to ensure the spirit of Kaizen throughout the implementation process, according to which during monitoring / inspection, the operator always determines to improvements. The Kaizen philosophy in Kamishibai is “Make it better, make it better, because if we don’t, we can’t compete with what others do.”

Productivity and Quality Office