Innovation Form
Savings that directly reduce actual expenditures in the budget.
What are Hard Cost Savings?
A workflow diagram that visually displays process steps and decision points from left to right.
What is Process Mapping?
Errors requiring correction or rework.
What are Defects?
This analysis compares the current state of a process to a desired future state.
What is Gap Analysis?
Continuous Improvement is described as being about this broader concept.
What is Innovation?
Savings such as time reduction, improved efficiency, or reduced frustration that may not immediately impact the budget.
What are Soft Cost Savings?
A visual tool used to track the physical movement of people, materials, or information within a workspace.
What is a Spaghetti Diagram?
Producing more than what is needed or earlier than required.
What is Overproduction?
This reflection tool identifies what is working well and what should change before or after mapping a process.
What is Plus/Delta?
This Japanese term means “the place where work is happening.”
What is Gemba?
This section of the Innovation Form explains the current condition, defines the pain point, and justifies why improvement is necessary before proposing a solution.
What is the Problem Definition?
This analysis classifies process steps as value-adding, required but difficult to change, or fully open to improvement.
What is Value-Added Analysis?
Idle time when work is delayed or waiting for the next step.
What is Waiting?
The measurable difference between current performance and desired performance is known as this.
What is the Gap?
During a Gemba Walk, participants are encouraged to observe physical surroundings, staff movement, atmosphere, and identify inefficiencies within the process.
What is Waste?
This root cause analysis method is often documented in the Results section of the Innovation Form.
What are the Five Whys?
A visual management system used to track backlog, work in progress, review, and completed items.
What is a Production Board?
Not fully utilizing employee skills, creativity, or capability.
What is Non-Utilized Talent?
Before implementing solutions, teams must clearly define this to ensure they are solving the correct issue.
What is the Current State?
Completing one unit of work at a time to reduce bottlenecks and work-in-progress is called this.
What is Continuous Flow?
This structured idea-generation method is used to generate potential solutions before selecting a final approach.
What is Brainstorming?
A workplace organization tool used to eliminate waste and improve flow through structured organization.
What is 6S?
Unnecessary movement of materials, information, or people between locations
What is Transportation?
This is often uncovered during gap analysis and becomes the primary target of continuous improvement efforts.
What is Waste?
After completing a Gemba Walk, teams must return to map the process, identify waste, create visual analyses, and recommend this.
What are Remedies, Innovations, or Solutions?