The term Hoshin Kanri has four components:
- Ho – means Direction
- Shin – refers to Focus
- Kan – refers to Alignment
- Ri – means Reason
It can be likened to ‘a leading star’ or the way that one point of a compass always points towards the North Pole. The concept is based on the principle that the most powerful organization is the one which has managed to harness the creative-thinking power of all of its employees in order to make the organization the best in its business. It requires that each person in an organization be regarded as the expert at their own job and their contribution recognized. All the members of an organization must have a clear understanding of the organization’s Vision and Goals.
What is Hoshin Kanri approach?
Hoshin Deployment is a tool used to facilitate the creation of business processes that result in a sustained competitive advantage in Quality, Delivery, Cost & Innovation. Hoshin Kanri approach is a system to translate the vision, not short term issues into tangible and measureable objectives for achieving the breakthrough results. At the heart of the Hoshin Process is the PDCA cycle of Continuous Improvement.
Why is Hoshin Kanri approach useful?
Hoshin aligns the thought process of each employee in the organization towards one single desirable direction to move the company towards that direction which is much faster than others. The sum of all the creative energy produces more than the sum total of results giving the organizations an edge over its competition. A comparison of the organization deploying Hoshin Kanri with the one not applying it can be done as:-
Benefits and Limitations of Hoshin Kanri Approach
Benefits
- Hoshin Kanri approach is participative. It creates alignment & involvement towards breakthrough objectives
- The planning process is continuously improved – the built in CI cycle helps.
- It helps organization to focus on vital few, rather than trivial many
- It integrates & encourages cross-functional co-operation to achieve breakthroughs
- The progress on plans is carefully monitored & feedback is fast
Limitations
- Hoshin requires complete Involvement & commitment from all stakeholders which proves difficult in some cultures
- Hoshin needs long term commitment, patience and support from top management
- Since it’s a learning process, at times it is slow
BMGI’s approach to Hoshin Kanri Deployment
BMGI has extensive experience with implementation of Hoshin Kanri and has delivered organization huge financial benefits in following their strategic direction. We have developed a unique model of Hoshin which has proved to work effectively with our clients.
We start with general plan of action over very long period of time -5 to 50 years. As a next step, we align the mid-term plan (3 to 5) year plan with long-term plan, including financial targets. Concrete plan then aims next 12 to 18 months which helps us achieve our mid-term breakthrough objectives. We build concrete initiatives of 6 to 12 months, defined by Annual Hoshin. We identify concrete projects defined by Annual Hoshin to improve operations, problem solving & Implementation to address waste, defects & abnormalities as well as improvements resulting from employees suggestions. A very brief snapshot of BMGI India Hoshin Kanri approach is shown:-
To drive the BSC journey BMGI India provides total support or partial support as required. The organization can pick the specific intervention required. To know more about how your strategy deployment initiative can be made more effective by application of Hoshin Kanri approach, contact BMGI.