Using Hoshin Kanri For Business Planning

Using Hoshin Kanri For Business Planning

In today’s competitive scenario, every business confronts fierce competition. Its where management employs planning processes, approaches, or management systems to incur maximum output. In the year 1965, when companies were facing cut-throat competition, Bridgestone Tires developed an approach called Hoshin Kanri. Hoshin Kanri also called the Policy Deployment tool, which ensures that vision, mission, goals, objectives are effectively communicated throughout the organization and implemented by everyone from the top level to the floor line. During the process, organizations develop several vision statements to encourage breakthrough thinking about its future direction. After which a vision statement is collectively chosen, and progressions are monitored periodically. This progress management tool is called Hoshin Kanri or Policy Deployment.
Have you executed your plans? What are your goals for the month or year? Have you agreed to a goal with your manager, or if you are an entrepreneur, then you need to have a pre-defined set of goals? If your work is followed with a set of well-defined and well-communicated sets of goals, then knowingly or unknowingly, you have been exposed to Hoshin Kanri or lean management tool.

  What is Hoshin Kanri?

Hoshin Kanri is a strategic planning tool in which goals are communicated throughout the company, and then actions are taken. The aim of implementing Hoshin Kanri is to improvise communication throughout the industry and to eliminate the risk of waste created by poor direction and communication.
Hoshin Kanri is a step-by-step methodology that takes a systematic approach to continuous improvement. It’s an aspect of the strategic planning process which elevates organization into greater areas of innovation and creativity. Hoshin Kanri is often called Hoshin planning or strategy development. Originated in year 1950s in Japan after its feasibility and success were then adopted worldwide as the de facto strategy execution methodology. The methodology has been successfully implemented by Toyota and other companies in Japan and some MNC’s in the United States and elsewhere. You can make your strategic planning more enchanting using Creative strategic planning templates.

Steps for Implementing Hoshin Kanri

Below are some of the ways mentioned that will aid in establishing Hoshin Kanri in an organization.

• Create a Strategic Plan: The foremost task of implementing Hoshin Kanri is to develop a strategic plan. The plans are often set by top-level management. The goals should be limited, focused on effectiveness, and should be agreed upon by all levels of management.
• Tactical Development: Once the goal or targets has been finalized by the top tier, then it’s up to the middle tier managers to develop the best tactics to achieve the goals.
• Take Action: At floor level managers, strategists should workout on the tactics as laid by the top-level or mid-level managers. The floor level is the level where goals or plans are transformed into results. That is what called Gemba. Therefore, managers to stay closely connected at this level. Give your action plan an attractive looking using appealing PowerPoint Designs.
• Review and Adjust: Till now, all the steps were concerned about cascading strategic goals down through levels of the company, all the way from top-level management to plant floor. At this level, the results are fed back up to the top levels, which ensures a Closed Loop system exists in the place. It enables the top tier management to review the progress of floor level operations.

Advantages of Hoshin Kanri

Hoshin Kanri is a ‘’strategy deployment’’ tool used by organizations to set a goal and execute the plans for achieving them. Hoshin Kanri has a number of advantages. Here are some of the mentioned below.

• Action Not Only Just Numbers: Often, strategic planning just revolves around numbers on a spreadsheet with no clear vision of turning them into reality. Hoshin Kanri involves measurable objectives to be assured that the design lays out the path to success.
• Definite Goal: Without a clear vision or understanding what management needs to achieve, teams, departments set their own goals, which may not be related to the overall strategy. Hoshin Kanri methodology eliminates such risk and assures that everyone is rowing in the same direction.
• Increased Engagement: When from top tier to floor level management is actively involved in determining the strategies and creating the action plans, it involves a sense of ownership and engagement, and the individuals are likely to invest more discretionary effort in improvising process.
• Easier Decision Making: Conflicts and indecisions in an organization often occur due to unclear or competing priorities. Employees generally want to perform their best, but without the proper insight into what matters most colleagues may disagree about almost every decision. Hoshin Kanri eliminates the guesswork out and assists in making a decision.
• Spread Awareness:  Hoshin Kanri isn’t just documents gathered on a shelf. When executed properly, it becomes the fabric of an organization. It becomes a performance appraisal tool and tracks the performance of every employee and department regularly. Even managers, the strategist can access the progress any time at any level.

Hoshin Kanri is the most effective methodology any organization can execute. Miscommunication and distracted goals among the team becomes unmanageable at a point of time and leads to the failure of a business. The ultimate benefit of Hoshin Kanri is it assists the organization in eliminating the disconnects, which results in miscommunications. With Hoshin Kanri, your team operates as ‘’United Front,’’ and your goals become personal agendas of employees.