Let’s set up a suggestion system; let’s have boxes on the wall, cute suggestion forms, and rewards… Let the suggestions pour in, let the money roll in!
📦 Box on the wall
📃 Suggestion forms exist
💶 Even rewards exist
❌ No suggestions, no results
⚠️ IN REALITY
Suggestions go unanswered. After a while, the employee stops writing suggestions entirely. They constantly expect rewards and incentives. Conflicts like “It was my idea, someone else wrote it down” start to arise. The system lives on the wall, dies on the shop floor, and is buried in history…
One of the biggest wastes is an employee’s idea that is not taken into consideration in time.
🛑 WHY DOESN’T THE SUGGESTION SYSTEM WORK?
🟡 No problem definition: “Ideas” are requested from the employee, but it is unclear which problem needs a solution.
🟡 No feedback: The fate of the submitted suggestion is unknown.
🟡 Reward fetishism: The “let’s pay for ideas” approach quickly corrupts the system.
🟡 Quality drop: The relationship between suggestions and bonuses lowers the quality of ideas.
🟡 Management is not at the Gemba: Management sitting at a desk looking at a piece of paper on a board cannot see the actual problem.
🟡 No standard work: Where there is no standard, there is no Kaizen.
🟡 No Asakai: Without a daily problem-solving routine, the suggestion system is left hanging in the air.
💡 THE LEAN TRUTH
The suggestion system is not Kaizen itself. If there is Kaizen, suggestions naturally emerge anyway.
In the Toyota-style approach, you don’t ask: “What came to your mind?”
You ask: “What problem did you see while doing your job today?”
The solution is tested immediately, right there, in small steps.
✅ WHEN DOES A SUGGESTION SYSTEM WORK?
✔ If there is a daily Asakai (morning meeting)
✔ If there is a clear problem definition
✔ If there is a fast “try, learn, standardize” cycle
✔ If management spends most of their time on the shop floor
✔ If the metric is the speed of problem-solving, not the number of suggestions
⚠️ A suggestion system; if it consists of paper, a box, and a reward, it’s a myth 🙂
⚠️ A suggestion system; if it’s a daily problem-solving culture, it’s the true Kaizen spirit.
