Term

Meaning

Kaizen

An improvement project.

EWO (Emergency Work Order)

A record of a breakdown or emergency, with downtime, repair and root cause.

Tag

An abnormality spotted on the floor that needs fixing.

Action

A task inside a Kaizen's action plan.

Project type

The kind of project, such as Quick Win or DMAIC Project.

Methodology

The problem-solving approach and its phases, such as PDCA or DMAIC.

Phase

A stage of the methodology, such as Plan or Do.

Section

A tool or form inside a phase, such as 5W1H or Action Plan.

Focused / Systematic

Focused projects fix one specific problem; systematic projects address several related issues, for example across an area.

Project lead

The person responsible for the project.

Sponsor

The manager who supports the project and removes obstacles.

Member

A team member working on the project.

Assignee

The person an item or action is assigned to.

Label

A tag you add to group or filter projects.

Hard savings

Savings that show up directly in the budget, such as less scrap or lower overtime.

Soft savings

Real benefits that don't directly reduce spending, such as time freed up or avoided cost.

Saving status

Where savings are in their lifecycle, for example planned, active, complete or inactive. It feeds the savings glide path.

Glide path

A chart comparing planned and actual savings over the year.

Revised due date

A due date that has been changed from the original.

Slippage / days delayed

How far a project is behind its due date.

Loss type

The kind of loss the project addresses, such as downtime or quality.

Pillar

The improvement area the project belongs to, such as Safety, Quality or Maintenance.

Tools

The lean tools and skills used on a project, linked to the Skills Matrix.

Expansion

A follow-on project that spreads a solution to other areas.

MTTR

Mean time to repair: the average time to get equipment running again.

VA / SVA / NVA

Value-added, semi-value-added and non-value-added time, used in time studies.