‘Dojo’ is a Japanese word. The word ‘do’ meaning ‘the way’ or ‘the pursuit’ and ‘jo’ meaning ‘a place’. Thus, Dojo is Japanese for ‘place of the pursuit’.
Originally it represented a room of a religious temple. The term was later used to represent martial arts (Japanese fighting skill) training rooms. Now days, organizations also have their own Dojo, a place to perform Lean Methodology thus called DOJO Lean Manufacturing. This concept is both a physical and symbolic space to train their people for certain methods or actions and positions.
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It’s a place where basic training is provided before new employees are positioned to their workstation. It usually replicates the working conditions as inside, so the employee feels at ease when he joins work after his training. In terms of a manufacturing unit, a Dojo center acts as a workshop that helps in skilling, re-skilling and providing proper skill set to the employees. Organizations can conduct an assessment test at the end of the training, and only qualified employees then be sent to their workstation.
The key point about Dojo is that the actions practiced are incredibly detailed. This is where the power of lean lies i.e., extremely detailed actions. Thus, we can say that Dojos Are for Details. Lean recognizes that improvement does not happens due to a big step taken by the management but by continuous cycles of improvement for a specific work that happen every day. Dojo is important for both the leaner, who learns key skills and the teacher, who gets an opportunity to explore in extreme details the real foundational skills of doing the particular job. Thus, in a way the true spirit of lean cannot be seized without a deep persistent interest in the details of work.
Benefits of Dojo:
- Dojo center practice can be considered as the center to understand the spirit of lean, in manner of TWI
- Dojo brings together a supervisor and an operator as a trainer and trainee which helps them to have mindful observation and discussion about the work.
- It helps to improve the work and treat it with respect it deserves.
