Kaizen was created in Japan following World
War II. The word Kaizen means "continuous
improvement". It comes from the Japanese words
"Kai" meaning school and "Zen" meaning wisdom.
Kaizen is a system that involves every
employee, from upper management to the
assembly line workers. Everyone is encouraged
to come up with small improvement suggestions
on a regular basis. This is not a once a month
or once a year activity. It is continuous. In
most cases these are not ideas for major
changes. Kaizen is based on making little
changes on a regular basis: always improving
productivity, safety and effectiveness while
reducing waste. It is based on making changes
anywhere that improvements can be made. The
Kaizen philosophy is to "do it better, make it
better, improve it even if it isn't broken,
because if we don't, we can't compete with
those who do."
Kaizen in Japan is a system of improvement
that includes both home and business life.
Kaizen even includes social activities. It is
a concept that is applied in every aspect of a
person's life. In business Kaizen encompasses
many of the components of Japanese businesses
that have been seen as a part of their
success. Quality circles, automation,
suggestion systems and 5S are all included
within the Kaizen system of running a
business. Kaizen involves setting standards
and then continually improving those
standards. To support the higher standards
Kaizen also involves providing the training,
materials and supervision that is needed for
employees to achieve the higher standards and
maintain their ability to meet those standards
on an ongoing basis.
Kaizen is a daily activity, the purpose of
which goes beyond simple productivity
improvement. It is also a process that, when
done correctly, humanizes the workplace,
eliminates overly hard work, and teaches
people how to perform experiments on their
work using the scientific method and how to
learn to spot and eliminate waste in business
processes.
To be most effective, Kaizen must operate with
three principles in place:
• Consider the process
and the results so that actions to achieve
effects are surfaced;
• Systemic thinking of
the whole process and not just that
immediately in view in order to avoid creating
problems
elsewhere in the process; and
• A learning,
non-judgmental, non-blaming approach and
intent will allow the re-examination of the
assumptions
that resulted in the current process.
Kaizen involves every employee in making
change, in most cases small, incremental
changes. It focuses on identifying problems at
their source, solving them at their source,
and changing standards to ensure the problem
stays solved. It's not unusual for Kaizen to
result in 25 to 30 suggestions per employee
per year and to have over 90% of those
implemented. These continual small
improvements add up to major benefits. They
result in improved productivity, improved
quality, better safety, faster delivery, lower
costs, and greater customer satisfaction. On
top of these benefits to the company,
employees working in Kaizen based companies
generally find work to be easier and more
enjoyable, resulting in higher employee moral
and job satisfaction.
Kaizen reduces waste in areas such as
inventory, waiting times, transportation,
worker motion, employee skills, over
production, excess quality and in processes.
It improves space utilization, product
quality, communications, production capacity
and employee retention. Kaizen provides
immediate results. Instead of focusing on
large, capital intensive improvements, Kaizen
focuses on creative investments that
continually solve large numbers of small
problems. Large, capital projects and major
changes will still be needed, and Kaizen will
also improve the capital projects process, but
the real power of Kaizen is in the on-going
process of continually making small
improvements that improve processes and reduce
waste.
