CFS and how the Hoshin Kanri model influences its constant success

A unique management model helps CFS meet goals.

With world-class and lean manufacturing, production, and management systems, Custom Foam Systems Ltd. (CFS) produces and supplies customized foam components for industrial use in Canada and beyond. The company has based these systems on two corporate philosophies – the Toyota production system, and the Hoshin Kanri model of business operations.

The latter approach is a method of managing or deploying strategic direction to help ensure that all staff understand that they are all working as a team in one direction, to boost the chances of accomplishing their goals.

A seven-step planning system

Hoshin Kanri is a Japanese term combining the words for “method” (ho), “shiny needle or compass” (shin), and “management” (kanri). It stands for a seven-step strategic planning system developed in Japan after World War II – a direction and alignment concept based on a deployment process that clarifies all workers’ roles to them, so that can play their part in supporting the whole team.

The clarity of the Hoshin Kanri model results in more efficiency and less waste. The company must uphold this discipline with high seriousness and responsibility. Through this model, CFS thoroughly understands all expectations for output, quality, safety, and delivery.

There are numerous facets to the Hoshin Kanri model. In manufacturing, it is a process strategy for improvement in production and management – in which activities are split into two categories to define how staff can accomplish them at every level: business fundamentals, which include all processes necessary to meet current customer needs; and breakthrough activities, or required actions to meet goals for growth, change, and technology.

To prevail over the long run, an organization must succeed in both fundamentals and breakthrough activities. CFS cites the example of a buggy-whip manufacturer in the 19th Century, a company that always fulfills business fundamentals by providing its products to customers with great service. But the company would fail in its breakthrough activities if it did not prepare for the looming invention of the automobile.

CFS aligns its team in one direction towards common goals, eliminating waste and resolving issues, with this approach.

To learn more, contact CFS.

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