The term yokoten refers to the sharing, learning and teaching of best practices laterally throughout an organization.  Yokoten is often referred to as "horizontal deployment" because practice of this principle requires various levels of an organization to share, innovate spread knowledge and or improve on kaizen in a cross functional manner.  A very important aspect of this critical principle is that individuals have an opportunity to exercise Genchi Genbutsu and gain consensus on improvements.  At times yokoten can include benchmarking, comparing and even borrowing from other improvements, but, in the truest sense yokoten should allow people to develop and grow as a result of sharing, learning and teaching.  

  The Traditional Yield is taken at the final step of a process to measure the effectiveness of the overall process.  Specifically, it shows you the percentage of products  or information that are acceptable at the end of a process.  This can be calculated by dividing the final output quantity by the initial input amount and converting that calculation into a decimal or a percentage.  This type of measurement does not take into account scrap, rework or any other inefficiencies in a process it only looks at what goes in and what comes out.  With this in mind yield may be a good initial measurement to start with but keep in mind that it does not reveal the hidden factory.

  PDCA or plan-do-check-act is a four step method used in lean, quality improvements and other continuous improvement strategies.  

  A changeover is the work required to change a specific machine, resource, work center or line from making the last good piece of an item to making the first good piece of another item.  That means that if the first good piece after the changeover is not good the changeover is not complete.  

  The RPN or Risk Priority Number is a quantitative assessment of risk that is assigned to a process or product function as part of a failure modes & effects analysis.  Individuals or teams assign the RPN based on an established criteria measuring the severity of impact, frequency of occurrence and the likelihood of detection.

  A checklist is a tool that can be used to ensure that you have everything required to set up and run your next operation.  It may also be used to ensure that important steps or actions have been taken that are important for an operation.  A checklist is different than a checksheet.  A checklist is used to show completion of a particular activity.

  Design for Environment or DFE as it is often referred to as, is a design method which considers the safety, sustainability, health and environmental aspects of a service or a product in the initial phases of development and design.

  Zero Quality Control is an method/approach for achieving zero defects in an organization.  Zero gives reference to the objective of ZQC which is to produce products/services with zero defects. 

  A setup is the work required to change a specific machine, resource, work center or line from making the last good piece of an item to making the first good piece of another item.  This includes the preparation and adjustments that are performed until the first good piece is processed.

• See also: Changeover.
• See also: Setup Time.

  The cause and effect diagram, fishbone diagram or Ishikawa diagram is a tool used to discover possible causes of an effect.