Lean Your Life - Kitchen Kaizen

Applying Lean to my life has been an idea of mine for a while. No matter how organized I am at work, to be honest it doesn’t always translate to my home. I recently went through a kitchen renovation and while organizing our new set-up applying lean principles was in the back of my mind. I was inspired by Gemba Academy - Ron Pereira's famous Kitchen Kaizen, applying the forms of waste and 5S (sort, straighten, shine, standardize and sustain) to emptying the dishwasher.

I started thinking about my dishwasher and the placement of our cutlery. Applying the reduction of waste through transportation and wasted motion, we set out to determine the best place to store our cutlery. We found a strategically placed drawer directly across from the dishwasher. Our dishwasher has the feature of a top cutlery rack, so when you pull out both drawers there is minimal transport to get it to its final destination. Of course the new dishwasher rack (instead of the outdated basket) has made it simple to use straighten from 5S to organize the forks, spoons and knives – easy lift and shift!

The same principles were used in the placement of our pots and pans in close proximity to the range and the strategic placement of the Keurig coffee pods to the coffee maker. Those items that are used only on special occasions were placed on high shelves and underneath our center island.

One of the areas we struggled with was maintaining the kitchen, and keeping it neat and clean. Of course starting with shine, scheduling in regular maintenance and not letting the dishes pile up has been key.

Finally, applying standardize and sustain to our daily lives makes this one time occurrence a habit. Whether it is the 3 time a day cleanup after meals or the daily put things in their place; having our scissors, tape and books in their place is a huge time saver as our family gets their work done throughout the day.

We are closing in on three months post the renovation and the maintenance of standardize and sustain has been extremely important. The family has changed our behaviors by ensuring we are keeping up with our standard work practices and continuing to make suggestions for improvement to our original designs. These modifications to our original placements help the family continue to reduce waste and become more efficient as we evolve.