Anahita Mehrotra

Fault tree analysis (FTA) is a top down analysis in which a failure in a system is analyzed to combine a series of smaller causal events. This analysis method is mainly used in the fields of engineering where system availability and reliability is very crucial to understand how systems can fail & to identify the best ways to reduce risk or to determine. FTA is most effective where fatality rate or mortality rate is high like in the Pharmaceuticals where studies are done with humans to patent a drug & aerospace, defense etc..... FTA is least effective in industries like Telecom, Retail etc...

1. A value adding activity is one that customer is willing to pay for - This stands true in every scenario depending on the process/ situation/ industry. 2. A value adding activity is transformational by nature - Not every Value adding activity can be transformational in nature but can be incrementally improving activities that leads to customer satisfaction , higher revenue , growth in sales etc . For e.g. In IT industry, renovating an application which is not transformational is still a value added activity & innovating for a new software application which is transformational in nature is also a value added activity. 3. A value adding activity is done first time right -- Not every value adding activity is done first time right. FTR is only when a process, software or product is stable & predictable, whereas when we improve or innovate a process or a product out of the box thinking is required which leads to experiments and hence baseline for FTR cannot be determined initially.

5S Definition Benefits Sort Going through all the tools, materials, etc., in the work area and keeping only the essential items. Everything else is stored or discarded. Finance team use to generate a report which had data from 2010 till date. Team only required data for last 1 year to do analysis. Logic used to pull information was modified and this has reduced report generation time. Set in Order Focuses on efficiency, by arranging the tools, equipment, visual dashboards and parts in a manner that promotes work flow. For everything there should be place and everything should be in its place. Team needed data in a particular order while performing analysis and hence team had set all the columns in that particular order. It saved analysis time. Shine Systematic Cleaning or the need to keep the workplace clean as well as neat. At the end of each shift, the work area is cleaned up and everything is restored to its place. The entire report was cleaned. Cells and data columns those were not required were removed. This speeded up the report generation time. Standardize Standardized work practices or operating in a consistent and standardized fashion. Everyone knows exactly what his or her responsibilities are to keep above 3S's. Earlier report was run during the day and it used to take lot of productivity time of the employee and machine. Now a standardize process has been created around the time of report generation. Every morning before the shift starts one person will run the report for 10 minutes. Sustain Refers to maintaining and reviewing standards. Once the previous 4S's have been established, they become the new way to operate. All the activities described above are sustained for last 3 months and now it is business as usual for the team.

Kaizen : Kaizen is the Japanese word for continuous improvement using small incremental change - Can be initiated using A3 thinking and smaller group improvement initiatives. Kaikaku : This refers to a revolutionary change to the existing situation - Can be initiatied using Application Renovation workshops Kakushin : It is about innovation, transformation, reform and renewal - Can be initiated using Automation workshops The difference between these can be elaborated through a software industry example: Kaizen can be equated to a minor update to a piece of software (less expensive), Kaikaku would be the upgrade of an application currently in use from a release level to a new release level (mid-level expense) & Kakushin may mean replacing a complete application with a different application (high expense) Multiple Kaizen workshops may trigger Kaikaku initiatives which in long run may lead to Kakushin changes - By doing A3 thinking we identify small operational improvements which paves path to application renovation through new releases and upgrades, which again can later be automated end to end from operations to business Either of them missing would lead to organization missing out on Continuous Improvement Initiaitives where Kaizen is the starting point leads to iterative Kaikaku and Kakushin.