Hoshin kanri

Concept

A Japanese method for turning a company's few most important goals into aligned goals and actions at every level, with regular reviews. Also called policy deployment.

Description

Hoshin kanri, also called policy deployment or strategy deployment, is a method for aligning a whole organisation behind a small number of key goals. Management sets a few priorities for the year. Each level then turns them into its own goals and actions, in a back-and-forth talk called catchball, so that the plans fit together and the people who do the work can shape them.

Progress is checked in regular reviews, using the plan, do, check, act cycle. The method keeps improvement work from scattering into many small projects that do not serve the strategy. In plants that use shop floor boards and tier meetings, hoshin kanri provides the link between the yearly goals and the daily targets on the board.

Related topics in brief

• iFAKT GmbH · Related to · Organization
  Stuttgart-based consulting company and software specialist for Industry 4.0, founded in 2001, that helps manufacturers plan and optimize production and logistics processes; developer of the Polaris software.
• PDCA cycle (Plan-Do-Check-Act) · Related to · Concept
  An iterative four-step improvement method (plan, do, check, act) used in lean and continuous improvement to test a change against expected results before making it standard.
• Operational excellence · Related to · Concept
  A management discipline that aims to make a company's operations reliably efficient and customer-focused through shared principles, standard routines, performance measures and continuous improvement at every level.
• Lean management · Related to · Concept
  A management approach derived from the Toyota Production System that creates more value for customers with fewer resources by removing waste, improving flow and involving the people who do the work in continuous improvement.
• Tier meeting · Related to · Concept
  A short, fixed daily meeting in stacked levels, from team to plant, at a board. Each level reviews safety, quality, delivery and cost, escalates what it cannot solve, and assigns owners and dates.
• Continuous improvement · Related to · Concept
  An ongoing effort to improve products, services or processes incrementally over time; applied here to cloud operations where monitoring signals trigger funded, owned actions.

Glossary

Experts and companies for this topic

• Mirko Peters · Microsoft MVP

Maintained by Mirko Peters (Microsoft MVP) · Last updated: 2026-11-11