Using Hoshin Kanri Catchball to deploy manufacturing improvements

Hoshin Kanri Catchball is an effective, compelling lean manufacturing technique when managers deal with serious shop floor issues, need to have confidence that employees are aligned, and want to get the best out of everyone in the organization. Getty Images

Your lean journey involves various strategies, tactics, projects, and investments, all of which require myriad decisions that help all the moving parts fit together. Some employees might feel in the know, while others might feel they’re out of the loop. In the worst case, some might question their boss’s intentions.

The way decisions are made really does matter, and it’s here that the catchball technique—sometimes called Hoshin Kanri Catchball—plays a useful role, helping you gather input from various perspectives at all levels of your organization. Let’s explore.

What Is Catchball?

It sounds like something you might do with your kids, but for purposes of your lean journey, catchball is serious business. Think of an idea cascading down and up in the organization. At the senior level, the idea might be a strategy. As it emerges in the middle of your organization, it looks more like a plan to frame up the strategy. Finally, at the front line, that same idea or topic gets into the tactics to execute the strategy.

Catchball is the glue that holds all these pieces together. The primary distinction between using catchball and simply deploying ideas and plans down into the organization (sounds familiar, doesn’t it?) is that with catchball there is a pulsating back and forth, a feedback between one level and the next.

Imagine your organization is constructed using the typical pyramid. To keep things simple, we’ll assume the org chart has just three levels: senior management, middle management, and the front line.

Senior management, responsible for setting direction and authorizing major investments, sets policies and strategies. Using catchball, managers draft their policies or strategies with input from appropriate sources, then “toss” them to middle management. What do middle managers do? They offer their perspective, evaluating the policy or strategy for feasibility and considering ways to sharpen the focus or minimize the risk. They look through their lens, which might be quite different than the lens senior managers have. Middle managers then toss the policy or strategy, along with their fresh ideas, back up to senior management. Senior managers might develop iterations to the catchball technique, tossing ideas in a structured way until they develop the best strategy or policy possible.

Does senior management have to use middle management’s input? Absolutely not. But if middle managers offer reasonable, valid, and actionable feedback, why wouldn’t senior managers welcome it?

Now suppose middle managers have the final product from senior management. Middle managers’ job is to turn the policy or strategy into a plan to deploy. Again, with input from appropriate sources, middle managers draft the plans and then toss to the front line. Front-line leaders (supervisors, lead people, engineers, material planners) look at the draft plans from their unique points of view, offer input, and toss back to middle management. Again, there might be iterations with multiple tosses back and forth.

Think of the higher level addressing the “what” and the next lower level addressing the “how.” In the current example, senior managers establish the “what” and middle managers establish the “how.” As deployment continues, middle managers’ “how” turns into their “what,” and now the front line deals with the “how.”

You might argue that the back-and-forth nature of the catchball technique is non-value-added. If you simply tell the lower levels what to do, you get quicker action and faster results … right? Well, maybe.

A fundamental tenet of lean manufacturing is respect for people, and one of the eight wastes is underutilized human talent. There is a time and place for the more measured approach using catchball. As you can see, catchball demonstrates respect for people and allows them to use their skills, experiences, and talents. And you should expect more sustainable solutions.

Benefits From Catchball

Catchball sounds like hard work. Why would you invest this amount of time, talent, and treasure in such a process? Well, consider the following benefits. The list isn’t exhaustive, but it at least gives you a taste of the value catchball can provide.

Sustainability. When you deploy new ideas, you get excitement and traction for a period of time, but then you begin to backslide. You slip back into the old mode of operation. The mechanics of catchball improve the probability that the idea (policy, strategy, plan, or whatever) will be sustainable after implementation.

Engagement. Catchball engages a cross section of your company that allows people to contribute substantively. Even if some employees’ contributions were not acted upon, their voice was heard.

Diversity of Ideas. By involving people up and down the organization, you receive lots of input from lots of perspectives. Employees at lower levels may have technical input that, without catchball, wouldn’t have been considered by the next level up. Diversity from different industrial experiences, years with the company, familiarity with the product, and beyond may help shape an idea.

Alignment. Tossing ideas up and down and back and forth helps foster alignment from top floor to shop floor. Alignment increases understanding and reduces skepticism.

Impact on Gemba. Catchball helps advance understanding of the impact the idea may have on the workforce in the gemba—that is, where the work takes place. You can avoid (or at least minimize) the unintended consequences of seemingly rational ideas at senior or middle levels on the people closest to where the work occurs.

Example of Catchball in Lean Deployment

To illustrate, let’s look at a catchball example at a metal fabricator. Customer feedback (that is, voice of the customer) indicates that the fabricator’s customers are fed up with poor on-time delivery performance. Also, potential customers are reacting negatively to quote, prototype, and first-article turnaround time. In short, senior management sees the need for quicker, more reliable throughput.

Senior managers frame up the business issue and determine that the company must aggressively pursue lead-time reduction as an operations strategy. They draft a document that identifies which products and customer segments require improvement, the target improvement level, the timing for results, and the potential budget. Then they toss the plan down to middle management for input and confirmation.

As middle managers consider the draft plan, they identify some common processes for all customer segments that they can leverage throughout the whole business. Other processes unique to one or two customer segments will likely require some capital investment. So, tossing the idea back, middle management recommends to senior management that the company take a two-phased approach. That’s round one of catchball.

Senior management agrees, adjusts the operations strategy, and tosses the idea back to middle management. Now middle management works on the plan to carry out the operations strategy.

Middle managers get more granular about which customer-segment processes will be addressed in the first phase. They develop a plan that identifies welding and painting as the primary focus. Several specific issues will be addressed through formal five-day kaizen events. Another issue will be dealt with using an ongoing process improvement team over a five-month period.

The second phase will address a project requiring capital investment. Middle management tosses the draft plan down to a cross section of front-line employees, and thus begins the next round of catchball.

The cross section of front-line personnel evaluates the draft plan and makes recommendations about the timing of two of the kaizen events, given an upcoming annual preventive maintenance initiative. They then toss the plan back to middle management. Adjustments are made and sent back to the front line.

Now the front-line group begins to formulate detailed plans about how to execute the quicker and more reliable throughput initiatives. They deal with the details about who will be involved, how work will be shifted around, and which work centers come first. Now … it’s time to get it done!