Lean Corner

3 types of Obeya: Strategic, Production and Office

The distinct goals of Strategic, Production and Office Obeyas
Strategic Obeya: Steering long-term vision and objectives
Manufacturing Obeya: Optimizing operational performance
Office Obeya: Facilitating collaboration and cross-functional projects
Best practices for efficient Obeyas

The Obeya, or “big room” in Japanese, is much more than just a meeting room. It’s a central visual management tool designed to strengthen collaboration and improve decision-making. To achieve this, Obeya must adapt to the team’s needs and objectives. In this article, we’ll look at three main categories of Obeyas you may find in your organization: Strategic, Manufacturing and Office.
Each of these three types of Obeyas meets specific needs, relies on distinct indicators, and involves different participants. We’ll explore these differences in detail to illustrate each type of Obeya.

The distinct goals of Strategic, Production and Office Obeyas

Let’s start with the basics: an Obeya must meet a specific objective. Here are the different objectives that Obeyas must meet.

Strategic Obeya: The main objective of this Obeya is to align the company’s long-term vision, stra-tegic objectives, and key resources. It coordinates management decisions and monitors macro indicators such as profitability and sales growth.
Manufacturing Obeya: This Obeya focuses on operational excellence. It enables real-time moni-toring of Manufacturing line performance, identifying deviations, and implementing immediate corrective action.
Office Obeya:designed for administrative environments and cross-functional projects. The aim is to facilitate inter-departmental collaboration, improve internal processes and ensure alignment with overall corporate objectives.

Strategic Obeya: Steering long-term vision and objectives

What KPIs to track in a Strategic Obeya?

Following the definition of the company’s objectives for the year (see the Hoshin Kanri method), the Strategic Obeya is the place where executives can monitor the indicators linked to the defined objectives. The indicators monitored can be:

Financial KPIs:

Sales growth (annual %)
Profitability: Net and gross margins, EBIT (earnings before interest and tax).
Market share: position of the company in comparison to its competitors.

Customer and market KPIs:

Net Promoter Score (NPS): Customer satisfaction and loyalty.
Market penetration rate

Monitoring strategic projects:

Monitoring progress of strategic projects completed on time: Measures the execution of major projects.

Who should participate and how often should Strategic Obeya be used ?

Strategic Obeya meetings often involve:

Senior executives, such as the CEO, CODIR, or any unit managers as required.
Quarterly or annual frequency to adjust strategies in line with market trends.

Use case: How did Toyota use a Strategic Obeya for the Prius?

When developing the Toyota Prius, Toyota used a Strategic Obeya to align all the departments involved: design, Manufacturing, marketing and logistics. This enabled management to monitor overall progress, resolve inter-departmental conflicts and ensure that the project met its strategic objectives.

Manufacturing Obeya: Optimizing operational performance

Key indicators and metrics for a high-performance Production Obeya

Manufacturing Obeya aims to ensure that manufacturing processes meet their quality, cost, and lead-time targets. It is most naturally found in factories and warehouses. The key indicators monitored are:

Manufacturing KPIs :

Overall Equipment Effectiveness (OEE): Combination of equipment availability, performance and quality.
Rate of defects/rejects (%): Measures the proportion of non-conforming products.
Manufacturing volume: Tracking of units produced per period (day/week).

Logistics KPIs :

On-Time Delivery (OTD) rate: Measures compliance with delivery deadlines.
Stock Turnover Rate: Indicates how quickly stock is sold out.

Quality and Safety KPIs :

Safety incident rate: Number of accidents or near-accidents per month.
Compliance with quality standards: Proportion of products validated at first check.

Planning & action follow-up :

Adherence to Manufacturing schedule: Ensures that orders are produced/delivered on time.
Action plan follow-up: Ensure implementation and follow-up of corrective actions to resolve iden-tified problems.

Who participates and at what pace should a Production Obeya be held?

Participants may vary according to the type of SIM defined. As a reminder, we can define the different levels of SIM as follows:

SIM 0: hourly or shift review, lasting 10 or 15 minutes maximum, bringing together operators with their team leader, to escalate problems encountered in Manufacturing.
SIM 1: daily review involving team leaders and the workshop manager.
SIM 2: daily or weekly review involving the Manufacturing manager and the various sector man-agers.
SIM 3: Overall performance point for management, covering all sectors.

For each SIM, it is possible to build a different Obeya. The meetings, often referred to as stand-ups, are held according to the rhythm established when the SIM was set up.

Use case: Optimizing production with an Obeya

In an automotive parts manufacturing plant, a Manufacturing Obeya is used to visualize the SQCDP (Safety, Quality, Cost, Delivery, People) chart. For example:
An increase in the breakdown rate is detected in the Safety column. Using an Ishikawa diagram in the Obeya, the team identifies insufficient preventive maintenance as the main cause. Immediate corrective action is taken and recorded in the action tracker.

Office Obeya: Facilitating collaboration and cross-functional projects

How to structure an Office Obeya to maximize collaboration?

Office Obeya aims to manage internal workflows and improve collaboration between departments. Indicators tracked include :

Meeting project deadlines: Measures the team’s ability to meet key project milestones. A Gantt chart to visualize tasks in progress, completed, and behind schedule.
Task tracking: Track project-specific tasks using Kanban boards, which provide a clear visualization of the stages of each task (in progress, completed, blocked).
Ticket tracking: Used mainly for IT projects, this indicator measures the number of tickets opened, resolved or pending.
Identification of key risks: Identify major project risks and track their evolution. Each risk is associated with a mitigation plan to reduce its impact or probability.

Which actors should be involved and how often in the Office Obeya?

Participants include project managers, heads of functional departments (HR, marketing, finance) and operational teams.
Meetings are often held on a weekly or bi-weekly basis.

Use case: Office Obeya in action in a consulting company

In a large consulting firm, Office Obeya is used to manage a digital transformation project. Visual charts include:

Gannt diagram
Ticket tracking
A Kanban to track tasks in progress, completed or blocked.
A PDCA (Plan, Do, Check, Act) chart to structure continuous improvement actions.

Thanks to Obeya, the team can quickly identify the critical points to be resolved and allocate additional resources to solve the problem.

Best practices for efficient Obeyas

For your Obeyas – whether Strategic, Manufacturing or Office – to be truly effective, it’s important to adopt certain global practices.

Standardizing practices for a high-performance Obeya

Standardization of practices: Define clear rules for your meetings in terms of participants, fre-quency and objectives. This will create a follow-up routine that will be beneficial in ensuring proper monitoring of KPIs.
Consistent formats: Use consistent formats across departments and hierarchical levels (e.g. SQCDP chart for Manufacturing or Gantt chart for Office projects). This facilitates the transmission of in-formation between teams.
Clear visuals: Information should be “self-supporting” or understandable at a glance without the need for explanation.

Digitize your Obeya for real-time monitoring

I recommend digitizing the practice of Obeya. Why?

Real-time monitoring: Data shared via digital tools guarantees immediate visibility on perfor-mance and any deviations to be corrected.

For example, in an Obeya Office, project progress indicators can be updated by API connection to other software.

Remote collaboration: International teams or telecommuting employees can actively participate in Obeyas via digital platforms.

Integrate feedback loops for continuous improvement

Obeyas are not fixed spaces; they must be part of a continuous improvement cycle in which information flows smoothly between the different hierarchical levels.

Connection between levels: Strategic, Manufacturing and Office Obeyas must be interconnected. Data from the Manufacturing and Office Obeyas must feed into the decisions taken by the Strate-gic Obeyas.
Constant feedback: Integrate feedback mechanisms to assess the effectiveness of actions taken. For example, after a corrective action in a Manufacturing Obeya, analyze its results at future meet-ings.
Shared action plan: Ensure that feedback leads to concrete adjustments. Visible updates on ac-tions taken improve participants’ commitment.

The three types of Obeya – Strategic, Manufacturing and Office – are tools for strengthening organizational performance. They help improve communication, solve problems quickly and ensure that all levels of the hierarchy work in synergy.
By tailoring each Obeya to its specific objectives, companies can maximize their use. By adopting the article’s best practices and monitoring them regularly, the impact on your organization will quickly be significant.

Lean Corner