How a Global Medical Manufacturer Moved Its Kaizen Programme Off Paper

A global medical accessories manufacturer ran its company-wide Kaizen programme on paper, across four phases and multiple sites. OnPoint Insights rebuilt it as a single Microsoft Power Platform application, cutting the time from a submitted idea to a completed improvement from months to weeks.

4 phases → 1 app

The whole Kaizen lifecycle, from submission to completion, now runs in a single application instead of four separate paper forms.

Months → weeks

The time it takes for a submitted idea to become a completed improvement.

1–2 clicks

What it takes an employee to submit an idea, or act on one, from any supported device.

The problem

Good ideas were dying in transit

Continuous improvement programmes live or die on participation. The more ideas employees put forward, and the faster those ideas move, the more value the programme returns.

Our client ran a company-wide Kaizen programme across multiple sites, where any employee could propose a fix for a safety, quality or process problem. The programme itself was sound. Everything that happened after someone had an idea ran on paper, and that was costing the business momentum.

What was getting in the way

Ideas had to fit inside a printed box, with no way to attach a photograph of the problem being described.
Four phases meant four separate forms, so no one could follow a single idea from submission through to completion.
Approvals moved by hand, and stalled whenever a form was misplaced or a reviewer was away.
Paper could not enforce who acted next, or in what order, so ideas could sit untouched for months.
Employees across different sites and languages had no consistent, secure way to take part.

Our approach

Fix the workflow first, then digitise it

What we found

The forms were not the real problem. The handoffs were. Every idea passed through operators, reviewers, assessors and approvers before it could be completed, and each handoff depended on a sheet of paper reaching the right desk at the right time.

What we did

One application for the whole lifecycle. Submission, assessment, approval and completion now sit in a single Power Apps application, so every idea carries one record from the first suggestion to the finished improvement.

A workflow that enforces itself. Each idea is routed to the right person at the right stage, operator to reviewer to assessor to approver, and the application will not allow a step to be skipped, so responsibility is always clear.

The system chases people, not the other way round. Power Automate notifies the next person the moment an idea needs them, replacing informal follow-ups and corridor reminders.

Built for every employee. Multi-language support, photo attachments and secure sign-in through Microsoft identity controls mean anyone at any site can take part, from any supported device.

The choice we made

We built on Microsoft Power Platform rather than a custom web application. It kept the programme inside the identity and security controls the business already runs on, and the application was built in 10 weeks.

BUILT ON

Power Apps
Power Automate
SQL Server
Multi-language

The results

What changed for the business

The programme now runs end to end in one application, and the three things that used to slow an idea down have gone.

Ideas stop disappearing

Every submission keeps one record through assessment, approval and completion, and leadership has a searchable history of every idea, review and approval rather than a filing cabinet.

Progress no longer waits on people

Each idea is routed to the right role and the next person is notified automatically, so a misplaced form or an absent reviewer no longer stops it.

Better ideas, from more people

Detailed descriptions and photographs give reviewers the context they need first time, and multi-language access means taking part is not limited by site or language.

Delivered by a Microsoft Solutions Partner for Data & AI

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