Kata: Problem Solving at Ready Foods

Coming from the Japanese language, Kata means “way of doing," and for us represents a method or continuous practice of problem solving in our lean journey.

15 Minutes A Day Can Make a Big Difference

We currently have 13 different teams across departments in Ready Foods practicing Kata and 3 teammates who are Kata coaches. The teams meet each day for a quick meeting to work towards tackling a problem. This method of problem solving allows us to take small steps each day to work towards a bigger, measurable goal while getting to the root of an issue. Teams are conducting time-studies, waste-studies, collecting training-effectiveness surveys, and testing new metric development, all so we can bring increased value to our customers and work on continuous improvement for our processes.

Here are some of the projects we are working on solving, many of these daily meetings have even taken place virtually. Have questions about kata? Reach out! We are happy to talk about our journey.

Impacts of Waste

One team has been studying the financial impacts of film waste, aka the bags our food comes in. Not only are we trying to eliminate waste, but we also want to be sure we are correctly accounting for it. We have studied and recorded batch after batch, thanks to the diligent team at 42nd Street team! Because of their Kata work, we can be more efficient for our customers and less wasteful.

Exceeding Safety Check Guidelines

Another one of our teams has been problem solving using the Kata method and was able to increase our food safety checks by 10 minutes, exceeding the regulatory guidelines. That’s huge! That means we are saving resources and money, which we can pass on as efficiencies to our customers. Kata has helped us question the status quo, making us a better team with better systems and in turn, better for our customers.

Reducing Incorrect Form Submissions

A Kata team has been working continuously to reduce the number of incorrect form submissions to be under 10%. Through their daily Kata, their form error rate is now under 5%. Their work is not done, they plan to track form error rates for the remainder of the year so that they can continue to maintain a lower rate and improve.