It was THE highlight for every KAIZEN team this year: The representatives of the European SEKISUI companies met for the 7th European KAIZEN convention in Düsseldorf, Germany. The teams from various sites competed against each other and presented their improvement activities to reinforce company structure and business performance.
You all know the idea behind KAIZEN: It’s the continuous improvement of Japanese manufacturing culture. SEKISUI aims to create a corporate culture of daily improvement in order to raise the growth of each person working on the factory floor or in the office.
Thus, it is so great to see how many SEKISUI employees are actively involved and taking part in KAIZEN activities at their plant. The winners of the internal KAIZEN events competed against each other in Düsseldorf on November 7th – and it was as certainly no walk in the park!
Getting to know each other and the projects
The event was kicked off on a grey and rainy Tuesday morning with practicing sessions for the teams. Simultaneously, the judges met to learn all about the projects and have the first discussions on the topics that would be presented. At lunchtime, all participants and the judges met for the first time; they had the chance to introduce themselves, mingle and catch up.
KAIZEN presentations
Strengthened after lunch, it was finally competition time! Yoshihiro Kikuchi, Manufacturing Development Innovation Center of Sekisui Chemical Co.,Ltd., welcomed the participants with greeting words from Japan.
After that, steering committee chairman Uwe Keller, HR Manager at SEKISUI Europe B.V., and competition chairman Henk Dohmen, QESH manager at SEKISUI Alveo AG, opened the main event and the presentations begun.
Overall 9 European teams participated at the event, you’ll find an overview of all participants and their ideas here. Each presentation was limited to 9 minutes followed by a Q&A session.
The presenters gave their best to convince the judges and the other participants.
The presenters gave their best to convince the judges and the other participants.
The presenters gave their best to convince the judges and the other participants.
Some critical questions were asked after every presentation.
Some critical questions were asked after every presentation.
The winner takes it all?
After the presentations, the participants were relieved and enjoyed some free time. It was overall not a competitive atmosphere, as the teams were happy to have the presentations behind and finally have some time for networking. Some KAIZEN teams even knew each other, because they worked together for their KAIZEN projects across different companies.
Information and research findings were shared between “competitors” so everyone could continue to work on their project. So even if the KAIZEN convention has one winner in the end, the others could feel like winners as well. Because the “team spirit” overcomes SEKISUI plants and single teams.
7th European KAIZEN Convention: The winners
Finally, the judges announced the 3 best rated teams of the 7th European KAIZEN convention. The winner of the European KAIZEN Convention is invited to join the global KAIZEN convention in Japan taking place in January. This year, Manuel Rivero from SEKISUI Speciality Chemicals Europe, S.L. made it to the top of the podium. The company produces Selvol™, one of the most comprehensive lines of polyvinyl alcohol polymers and copolymers in the world. Manuel and his team from Tarragona, Spain, convinced the judges with the idea of minimizing the quantity of fine particles of the final product in order to maximize production speed of the customer. Congratulations!
The 2nd and the 3rd place went to the Netherlands. SEKISUI Alveo B.V. is known as the preferred European provider of solutions in high-performance polyolefin foams. Thijs Geraedts, Davy Janssen and Johan van Heugten were ranked with the 2nd place for their KAIZEN project. They worked on a way to increase the customer satisfaction after a bad ranking from the customer.
Davy Janssen, Johan van Heugten and Thijs Geraedts from SEKISUI Alveo B.V. (together with Akira Hikono, MDIC Senior Adviser)
Patty Prickaerts and Marianne Mols-Loscher from SEKISUI S-Lec B.V. in Roermond accepted the 3rd price as representatives for their team. They all worked on improving the performance of viscosity measurement on acoustic resin. The company manufactures interlayer films based on PVB resin for glass used in car windshields or buildings in order to increase safety and additional functionality like sound or solar control.
The 3rd place went to Patty Prickaerts and Marianne Mols-Loscher from SEKISUI S-Lec B.V.
If you are interested in participating in a KAIZEN team or want to know how the internal activities are organized: Write an email to your HR contact and read more about the internal KAIZEN activities here.
