Kaizen is a Japanese concept, which has helped the Japanese corporations achieve tremendous success in consumer electronics, automobiles, industrials and various other fields. Toyota and Sony are shining examples of Japanese excellence in business despite recent stumbles. Japanese concepts and management theories have often been adopted by companies in the west, with mixed results. Today we are here to explore a key concept in Japan’s approach to managing their businesses: Kaizen.
What is Kaizen?
Kaizen, translated from Japanese, means continuous improvement and is an extension of the ‘Lean Production’ approach to management. A business trying to implement Kaizen will adopt a business model that allows them to make continual, minute improvements or changes to the company to provide more exceptional quality, more productivity and cater to the demands of customers. The Kaizen principle assumes that your workforce can identify and implement the improvements that are required as you work towards your goals and also have the ability to ensure payoffs for employees as an acknowledgment of their contributions to company growth. After all, every workforce needs a great motivator.
Kaizen can be conducted at the individual level, or through Quality Circles or Kaizen Groups. These are groups brought together specifically to identify potential improvements.
Improvements become an essential part of the team’s aims. In Kaizen, improvements are based on many small changes and not on anyone radical change. As ideas are often taken from the workers, they are less radically different and easier to implement. These minor improvements require smaller capital investment. Even gathering the concepts is an inexpensive process as the existing workforce is involved. All employees should be focused on ways to improve individual performances.
Kaizen encourages the workers to take ownership for their work. It can help to reinforce teamwork and thus improve worker motivation.
Breaking down the Concept of Kaizen:
To truly understand the concept of Kaizen, we must look at it in depth. It is one thing to say that you will start making continuous improvements to your product line, but it is quite another thing actually to do it. Some of the critical features of Kaizen are teamwork, personal discipline, improved morale, quality circles and suggestions for improvement. While you need to give importance to all these features, the following points will ensure continuous improvement.
Below is a step-by-step approach to Kaizen suggested by Dr. W Edward Deming, who used Kaizen as a part of his quality revolution:
-
Involve everybody in the company to accomplish the transformation. Create constancy of purpose for improvement of product and service.
-
A new win-win philosophy.
-
Create a quality product in the first place and eliminate the need for inspection on a mass basis.
-
Avoid awarding your business based on the price. Lower the total cost instead.
-
Try to improve the system of production and service regularly. As quality and productivity are increased, the cost will decrease.
-
Arrange on-the-job training to increase skills and encourage leadership. The aim of supervision should be to assist people, machines, and gadgets to provide a better outcome.
-
Eliminate fear and establish trust so that employees can work efficiently for the company.
-
Diminish barriers between different departments. The research, sales, design, and production should work as a team to foresee problems of production.
-
Stop asking for new levels of productivity and zero defects as the slogans, exhortations, and targets create adversarial relationships.
-
Avoid barriers which prevent the hourly workers of their right to pride of artistry.
-
Remove barriers which deprive people in management and engineering of their right to pride of artistry.
-
Eliminate numerical goals and quotas.
-
Arrange a vigorous program of education and self-improvement.
-
The transformation is everyone’s job.
In Western workplaces, kaizen is often broken down into four steps:
- Assess
- Plan
- Implement
- Evaluate
The term “kaizen blitz” is ubiquitous in the western cultures. Kaizen blitz means a concentrated effort to bring quick changes to reach the short-term goal quickly. It can also be called kaizen burst or kaizen event.
In fact, one of the most remarkable concepts of kaizen is that significant results come from several small changes accumulated over time. Some misunderstand that kaizen equals small changes. If anything, Kaizen means involving everyone in making improvements. Most of the changes may be small, but the Kaizens led by senior management as transformational projects or by cross-functional teams have the most significant impact.
An Example of Kaizen
One of the most excellent examples of Kaizen in the world of modern consumerism is Toyota. This company, based in Aichi, Japan, is now a worldwide brand and a household name in countries around the world. Toyota makes incremental items to each product line, assuring the customers that some more of their demands will be met with every new release. There’s not much difference between a Corolla X and a Corolla G when it comes to specifications, but a small change (like more space on the interior or a better-inbuilt sound system) can be all that’s needed to draw in new customers and satisfy existing ones.
Wrapping Things Up
Kaizen is not the be-all and end-all of the business strategies. Remember that radical improvements or innovative new technology can lead to a massive boost in business as well. When applying the Kaizen principle, the sheer mass of minor changes will display substantial market benefits in the future. However, it is a long-term strategy and leaves room for us to implement short-term strategies in the meantime.
For Kaizen to work, a significant amount of trust is required within the workforce. The staff needs to be interdependent and also have faith in their managers. Individuals need to rely on each other to form a whole, a giant machine crunching out ideas on a constant basis. It takes time to implement Kaizen, and it does not work with every kind of workforce. If you are serious about applying Kaizen in your business model, adopt the policies for yourself. Take your time to embrace it and make the changes slowly.