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Introduction

1.1 History Of Kaizen

"What the Japanese learned about management after World War

II, they learned from the Americans. And the Americans forgot

Their own lessons."

This was said by Homer M. Sarasohn. He was among the very first who taught Japa-

nese business people how the Americans did it and we believe there is a lot of truth in that statement. Only a few decades ago, the world, Japan included, looked to the U.S. for management models. Now we look to the Japanese. How did this

Reversal of roles comes about?

Kaizen is based on the theories of efficiency developed by W. Edwards Deming between the 1930s and 1940s during World War II. Once the war was over around the 1950s the Japanese picked up the ideas and developed the concept of Kaizen. A man named Taiichi Ohno developed the Toyota Production System through kaizen efforts (continuous improvement of quality, cost and delivery). Many of the ideas behind kaizen came from industrial engineering and Dr. Edward Deming's teachings on quality.

1.2 What is Kaizen?

Kaizen means improvement, the Kaizen strategy calls for never ending efforts for improvement involving everyone in the organisation, both managers and staff alike.

The goals of kaizen include the elimination of waste (defined as "activities that add cost but do not add value"), just-in-time delivery, production load leveling of amount and types, standardized work, paced moving lines, right-sized equipment, etc. A closer definition of the Japanese usage of Kaizen is "to take it apart and put back together in a better way." What is taken apart is usually a process, system, product, or service.

Importantly, kaizen must operate with three principles in place: process and results (not results-only); systemic thinking (i.e. big picture, not solely the narrow view); and non-judgmental, non-blaming (because blaming is wasteful).

Everyone participates in kaizen; people of all levels in an organization, from the CEO on down, as well as external stakeholders if needed. The format for kaizen can be individual, suggestion system, small group, or large group.

Kaizen is a daily activity whose purpose goes beyond improvement. It is also a process that, when done correctly, humanizes the workplace, eliminates hard work (both mental and physical), and teaches people how to do rapid experiments using the scientific method and how to learn to see and eliminate waste in business processes.

2.1 Kaizen and Management

Management has two major components:

1. maintenance

2. improvement

The objective of the maintenance function is to maintain current technological, managerial and operating standards. The improvement function is aimed at improving current standards.

Under the maintenance function the management must first establish policies, rules, directives and standard operating procedures and then work towards ensuring that all the staff follows these standard operating procedure.

Under the improvement function management works continuously towards revising the current standards as well as establishing higher ones. Improvement can be broken down between innovation and kaizen. Innovation involves a drastic improvement in the existing process and requires large investment. Kaizen on the other hand in more advantageous because it signifies small improvements as a result of coordinating continuous efforts by all employees.

2.2 Process oriented Thinking Vs Result oriented thinking

Kaizen concentrates at improving the process rather than at achieving certain results. Such managerial attitudes and process thinking make a major difference in how an organization masters change and achieves improvement.

2.3 Employee Empowerment - The suggestion system

The suggestion system is an integral part of an established management system that aims at involving employees in Kaizen. The number of worker's suggestions is regarded as an important criteria in reviewing the performance of the worker's supervisor and the manager of the supervisor.

The Japanese management encourages employees to generate a great number of suggestions and works hard to consider and implement these suggestions, often incorporating them into the overall Kaizen strategy. Management also gives due recognition to employee's efforts for improvement. An important aspect of the suggestion system is that each suggestion, once implemented, leads to an upgraded standard.

Quality control circles can be viewed as a group-oriented suggestion system for making improvements. Quality control is a small group that voluntarily performs quality-control activities in the workplace.

Total quality control involves everyone in the organization and is aimed at improvement of managerial performance at all levels.

3.1 Kaizen's Starting Points:

* not a single day should go by without some kind of improvement being made somewhere in the company

* Starts with people

* Focuses its attention on people's efforts

* People work on processes

* Processes are continually improved

* Improved processes improved results

* Improved results satisfy customers

* customer-driven strategy for improvement - any management activity should eventually lead to increased customer satisfaction

* quality first, not profit first - an enterprise can prosper only if customers who purchase its products or services are satisfied

* recognition that any corporation has problems and establishing a corporate culture where everyone can freely admit these problems and suggest improvement

* problem solving is seen as cross-functional systemic and collaborative approach

Emphasis on process - establishing a way of thinking