Hoshin Kanri: Lean Planning Method to Align Goals and Daily Tasks

Every manufacturing leader knows how hard it is to turn a strategic, big-picture plan into actionable daily tasks. Hoshin Kanri, sometimes referred to as policy deployment, is a Lean management method that tries to close that gap. Think of it as your company’s strategic compass, making sure that everyone in the organization is working toward the same goals. In this article, we’ll explore the concept of Hoshin Kanri, how to plan and apply it in a business environment, and how modern software can streamline this process.

Hoshin Kanri is a Japanese strategic planning methodology that aligns the day-to-day efforts and long-term goals of the entire organization. Translated literally as “direction” (hoshin) and “management” (kanri), this method helps businesses clearly define the strategic direction at the top of the organizational chart and drive it down, department by department, worker by worker.

What that does is ensure that every action on the shop floor is being guided by, and striving toward, your company’s “True North” strategic objectives.

When done right, everyone, from executives to operators on the front lines, has the top goals in mind and a clear understanding of how their work drives the company toward its objectives.

You may be wondering whether implementing Hoshin Kanri is worth the trouble. Here are its key benefits:

• Precise strategic focus → priorities are clearly outlined, easing decision-making and ensuring that everyone is working toward the same goals.
  
• Organizational alignment → by aligning all organizational planning (sometimes referred to as “catchballs”), Hoshin Kanri ensures every department sets collective aims.
  
• Prioritizing resources → Hoshin Kanri makes it simple to decide what’s most important, efficiently allocating manpower and resources so there’s no wasted effort on unrelated work.
  
• Ongoing progress monitoring → all progress towards strategic objectives is tracked through regular monitoring to enable early responses, free from bureaucratic delay.

Hoshin Kanri has been credited by several world-class manufacturers for accomplishing astounding performance improvement. As a real-world example, when Ingersoll Rand implemented Hoshin Kanri as its operational management system, they reported significant waste cut down and stronger organizational alignment, where all workers clearly understood how their efforts were contributing to the overall company success.

Through aligning its people, processes, and projects using Hoshin planning, Ingersoll Rand experienced rapid growth, and this is just one of many examples.

The great thing about Hoshin Kanri is that its planning and management methodology is flexible enough to be applied to various organizations. Generally speaking, Hoshin planning can be illustrated as a seven-step cycle, with each step playing a key role in the company-wide strategy development:

1. Establish the vision and assess current state: Define your ideal future vision (5+ years), and use that as your core foundation for the entire Hoshin Kanri strategy, it’s your company’s “True North”. Next, it’s time to conduct a thorough and objective review of where you stand today as a company, evaluating existing plans, baseline performance, and ongoing processes to ground your strategy in reality.
   
2. Set breakthrough objectives (3–5 year goals): Choose a handful of challenging, high-impact objectives that will significantly grow the business 3-5 years down the road. Breakthrough objectives have to push the business to higher performance (e.g., new market growth, doubling output) and usually coincide with Lean or Six Sigma initiatives for radical change.
   
3. Develop one-year objectives: Divide those breakthrough objectives into concrete “stepping stone” year-long goals for the near future. You want to ask yourself: What must we accomplish during the year to put us into place for our 3–5 year vision? These must be clear, quantifiable goals, for instance, “boost on-time delivery to 98%” or “cut defect rate by 50%”, each bringing you one step further toward the breakthroughs.
   
4. Align all goals to teams: Allocate those annual goals throughout the entire firm. Each division, department, and team should have clear set goals with an understanding of how they relate to the strategic, organization-wide mission. This is the stage where the master plan gets cascaded down into actionable tasks. A culture of manager-employee open communication is set in place for creating aligned priorities so everyone understands what they have to do in order to achieve each set of goals.
   
5. Execute with daily management: Now it’s time to start putting those plans into action. Every person in the organization, from manufacturers to line managers, works on their assigned day-to-day tasks in the direction of those year-end objectives. This generally involves using the various Lean methods, such as Kaizen events, PDCA problem-solving, etc. It’s crucial here that progress is periodically monitored (with dashboards, huddles, specialized software, etc.), to ensure consistent alignment with strategic objectives.
   
6. Monthly progress reviews: Leadership requests progress summaries from all departments at the end of each month to determine whether each process is still fully aligned with the 1-year plan and the long-term vision. These milestones implement a habit of accountability, driving team motivation, and removing any new obstacles that may have come up.
   
7. Annual review and adjustment: At the end of the year, it’s time to conduct a thorough, general audit of your performance against the initially set plan.
   
   If the company met its targets — it moves toward setting new goals for the next year. If not — it must analyze what went wrong and why, and alter the necessary approach and processes, keeping the strategic plan dynamic and responsive. 

Companies can seamlessly modify each step, but the main process remains the same: plan → do → check → act, company-wide.

An increasing number of companies leverage specialized automation tools to digitize and implement the Hoshin Kanri framework into their operations. For instance, here’s how Tervene helps Manac plan and monitor their day-to-day operations and long-term objectives: 

We chose an app that facilitates the capture of information on the floor, ensures its follow-ups and assigns the proper people for the job according to our priorities. It also helps us structure our meetings between the different departments and task forces, then standardizes the transfer of information within the company’s levels.

Dave Forgues

Production Director

Industry leaders use Tervene to plan and manage projects more effectively

Without Tervene today, I wouldn't be able to perform my job as effectively.

Jacques Aumont

Director of Operations, Groupe Bouhyer

To have the Hoshin plan top of mind and ensure everyone is on the same page, businesses generally use the Hoshin Kanri X-matrix, a one-page strategic planning diagram. The diagram aims to concisely condense the key points of the Hoshin plan into a single diagram separated into four easy-to-read quadrants (making the “X” shape), which contain:

• Long-term objectives: 3-5 year or more breakthrough goals. This bottom-right box (usually the “South” of the X) identifies the grand strategic, long-term goals of the organization.
  
• One-year goals: These are annual goals for the current year, derived from the strategic, 3 to 5-year mission. This left-hand (or “West”) section of the diagram shows what you have to accomplish in the year as you move toward the long-term vision.
  
• Top-level priorities: Important projects, ventures, or core areas of focus that would help achieve the one-year objectives. This is the top quadrant (“North”) that identifies what significant ventures or alterations the business would undertake to attain those goals.
  
• Improvement metrics: This is the “East’ quadrant, which entails precise, measurable goals and key performance indicators (KPIs) to track the success of ongoing operations (e.g. +10% yield rise).

Each quadrant of an X-matrix is linked to one another, illuminating those connections, e.g., which year goals are the foundation of which long-term goals, and which projects affect which KPIs. The very middle of the X-matrix is where the overall strategic theme or vision is described, linking all the pieces together.

In short, the Hoshin Kanri matrix clearly captures and isolates all long-term goals, short-term goals, what you’re going to do to make them happen, and what you’re going to measure them against in one visual diagram.

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Manual Hoshin planning often relies on spreadsheets, disconnected meetings, and paper-based tracking. That works in theory, but in practice, it slows everything down and lacks real-time visibility. This is where modern software tools like Tervene step in.

Tervene gives manufacturers a practical way to implement Hoshin Kanri and sustain it on the shop floor. The platform connects strategy to frontline execution through structured management routines, issue tracking, and cross-team collaboration.

With Tervene, teams can:

• Standardize daily leadership practices (e.g., Gemba walks, tier meetings)
• Escalate and resolve issues fast, keeping execution aligned with goals
• Assign, track, and follow up on action plans from anywhere
• Gain instant visibility into KPIs, audits, and operational performance

In short, Tervene doesn’t just help you plan better, it helps you execute better. By centralizing strategy deployment and operational follow-up, it supports the core of Hoshin Kanri: aligned goals, continuous improvement, and a culture of accountability.

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