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Kaizen
Overview of Kaizen:
Many observers consider kaizen -a philosophy of ongoing improvement involving everyone, from top managers to the lowest level worker-to be the single most important element in Japan's competitive success in manufacturing. One commentator's characterization of kaizen distinguishes Japan's process-oriented view of thinking from the West's innovation-and results-oriented view. In practice, kaizen is a system for communicating ideas up and down the company hierarchy; everyone is encouraged to seek out and exploit new opportunities, and institutional barriers to the information flow are dismantled
The kaizen attitude helps to explain why Japanese firms are so adept at exploiting new technology, even when they are not its originator. Kaizen-driven firms do not suffer from "not invented here" syndrome. Ideas are not the exclusive preserve of R&D, corporate planning, or market research; every new idea is welcomed and implementation avenues are evaluated and explored. The logic of kaizen is that breakthroughs result not from massive reorganizations or large-scale investment projects but from the cumulative effects of successive incremental improvements. "Rebuilding a factory," wrote William H. Davidow and Michael S. Malone (The Virtual Corporation [New York: HarperBusiness, 1992], 118), "requires replacing almost every brick in the old plant. Do that too quickly and the structure will collapse. The only practical way is through kaizen."
An example of kaizen's effectiveness:
Nissan's experience with welding robots. First introduced in 1973, within a decade their use had cut work time per unit by 60 percent and increased overall production efficiency by 20 percent. These gains were achieved through a series of kaizen programs that searched out improvements that cut time by as little as half a second. The programs, initiated within three to six months of one another, formed a staircase, each step occasioning a brief period of stability before the next rose, inexpensively, a little above it.
Re-engineering is not Kaizen
To be sure, quality programs and reengineering share a number of common themes. They both recognize the importance of processes, and they both start from the needs of the process customer and work backwards from there. However, the two programs differ fundamentally. Quality programs work within the framework of a company's existing processes and seek to enhance them by means of what the Japanese call kaizen, or continuous incremental improvement. The aim is to do what we already do, only to do it better. Quality improvement seeks steady incremental improvement to process performance. Reengineering, as we have seen, seeks breakthroughs, not by enhancing existing processes, but by discarding them and replacing them with entirely new ones. (Michael Hammer and James Champy, Reengineering the Corporation: A Manifesto for Business Revolution [New York: HarperBusiness, 1993], 49.)
The difference between kaizen and business process reengineering is fundamentally a difference in duration and magnitude of change; kaizen posits change as a sustained series of incremental adjustments, reengineering as an all-out commitment to wrenching reconstitution. Kaizen charges management to prioritize, standardize, and improve. Standardization and measurement are the keys to kaizen. Without detailed and specific metrics of quality and performance, there is no basis for moving forward; goals that cannot be measured are just rallying cries.
Characterizing kaizen as simply "continuous improvement" trivializes the concept and portrays it as cautious and lacking in imagination, a criticism frequently leveled by advocates of business process reengineering.
More typically, the implementation of kaizen reflects a radical commitment to an entire way of operating that requires floor-to-ceiling change in management, work, manager-worker relationships, discipline, decision making, and the organization of knowledge, that transforms an organization into a federation of problem solvers. Continuous improvement treats every variance from target as a problem to be solved and everyone as a responsible contributor.
What is Kaizen?
According to Imai (1986), "Kaizen means improvement. Moreover it means continuing improvement in personal life, home life, social life, and working life. When applied to the workplace Kaizen means continuing improvement involving everyone - managers and workers alike." He relates quality to Kaizen by stating that "In its broadest sense, quality is anything that can be improved."
Note that if something can be improved then, in some sense, a measure must exist by which improvement can be quantified. Hence the genesis of the concept of quality characteristics .
It is through Kaizen that the processes, which bring forth or sustain the product, are made more competitive. If customer satisfaction (the larger the better) and cost (the smaller the better) are chosen as the primary quality characteristics, then the focus of workplace Kaizen is to improve value, and hence competitive advantage.
Objective
Many companies are long on crafting vision statements and short on delivering results when restructuring their manufacturing systems. It's time to stop talking and start doing. Initial events will focus on training and utilizing your employees to make dramatic improvements within a specific focused project or area of your facility starting immediately! Through hands-on involvement, your employees gain knowledge and understanding of Kaizen tools that will give your company a competitive edge.
Critical Assessment
Many companies find it difficult to define and assess problem areas and identify specific Kaizen projects scheme or a plan to implement. The project scheme chosen should either specifically address a bottleneck within your operation, or have a significant impact on overall plant project goals and objectives. The goals for a project scheme must be aggressive (i.e. a 50%+ reduction in changeover time, or a 30% improvement in productivity for an area). If necessary, High-Focused Improvements, Inc. can help you to identify and prioritize specific projects schemes and opportunities by conducting a Critical Assessment Kaizen Event. This task involves leading a team to take a "top-down" look at specific areas or processes in your organization and identifying successful projects schemes to tackle.
The Kaizen events given below is an example that depict the activities in a manufacturing environment. The same can be incorporated to any other industry like the software industry.
Kaizen Event
The in-house Kaizen Event will include the following:
Team Training
Shop floor problem
analysis, solution simulations, and implementation of improvements.
Team measurements
of improvements and preparation of management presentation, including follow-up.
Results presentation
to facility staff by Kaizen team members.
Timing
Rapid implementation is mostly dependent on top management’s commitment to driving change! Our staff can support One to two monthly events. Many clients "firm schedule" an outside facilitated event monthly or bi-monthly. As you gain in-house experience, you will begin to facilitate some projects internally while continuing to utilize outside facilitators to aggressively push new techniques (one-piece flow, cellular layouts, work-balancing, set-up reduction, preventative maintenance, material Kanbans, quality Poka yokes) and expectations for current and future events.
Kaizen and the CQI Culture
The business lesson of the 1980's was that Japanese employment practices demonstrated a far greater commitment to a philosophy of continuous quality improvement than Western business. This contributed substantially towards competitiveness. The Japanese used the term Kaizen. Such commitment focuses on activities that are low in value-added. Sources of waste are tackled, individuals and groups take responsibility for problems and they feel empowered to make personal efforts to minimize:
As an industrial norm, Japanese practices seemed to embrace belief in multi-skilled, committed employees who respond flexibly and with know-how to resolve local, operational problems and fluctuations. If sales are low instead of continuing to produce blindly, reviews of practices and efficiencies, maintenance operations and training would be normal activities for employees in a team. Rank-and-file employees might participate in other creative endeavors.
In one sense JIT can be seen as a technical system of data capture, calculation and communication. Operations are fine-tuned and systems become more precisely controlled. However, reliance on organisational partnership and membership behaviours associated with a supportive industrial relations climate are essential particularly if the aspirations of continuous quality improvement are to be secured. Hierarchical Organisations that have Mmanagers who are separated from their workforce by status and behaviour would find it hard to obtain the benefits of CQI as occupationally normal behaviour. Lip-service investment in the thinking ability and creativity of all staff is quickly recognised as a sham.
Adoption of JIT many therefore also involve
Kaizen means continuous improvement in personal life, home life, social life, and working life as a whole. As related to the workplace, kaizen means continuing improvement involving managers and workers, customers and suppliers alike. Quality is anything that can be improved. Thus, through kaizen processes such as TQC, TQM, Hoshin, and Strategic Planning, products are made more competitive. NASA Langley Research Center
The essence of KAIZEN is simple and straightforward: KAIZEN means improvement. Moreover, KAIZEN means ongoing improvement involving everyone, including both managers and workers. The KAIZEN philosophy assumes that our way of life - deserves to be constantly improved.- Mr. Masaaki Imai, the first Japanese to introduce KAIZEN to the world and the author of "KAIZEN, The Key to Japan's competitive Success"http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/007554332X
"If a man has not been seen for three days, his friends should take a good look at him to see what changes have befallen him" - quoted from the old Japanese saying, describe how natural KAIZEN is.
