What Is Kaizen in Management? – definition | examples | process
What Is Kaizen in Management?
Kaizen, meaning ~’ continuous improvement,~’ can ensure proper management and effective performance in a company. Discover the definition of kaizen and its cultural origin. Explore examples of kaizen on a personal and a group level and potential issues in implementing the process.
What Is Kaizen?
Kaizen is a Japanese word meaning continuous improvement. It’s made up of two characters in Japanese: kai, which means ‘change,’ and zen, which means ‘good.’ It’s used to describe a company culture where everyone, from the CEO to the front desk clerk, regularly evaluates his or her work and thinks of ways to improve it. The concept is that small steps on a regular basis will lead to large improvements over time.
Kaizen is a slow but ongoing process of improvement, not a ‘blitz’ or quickly implemented set of changes. The improvements are suggested by the person doing the work, not an outside evaluation team. If a worker has a problem to address or is considering whether a change will make sense, he should pull in several team members for a quick discussion and brainstorming session and then decide what to do from there.
How Do You Implement Kaizen?
It’s important to note that kaizen is a way of thinking, not a project to complete. To implement it, all employees should receive training on the concept of kaizen and should have some guidelines in terms of what they need to do before implementing a change. For example, it may be fine for an office worker to change his or her handling of paperwork without any discussion. A change in the production process, though, may impact multiple teams and should be discussed with all impacted parties before implementation. In addition, most production steps will be subject to safety regulations and will have detailed documentation on accurate performance, and these need to be in place before a change is made.
It’s also important that management is trained and be behind the effort. Kaizen will result in many more suggestions for improvements and changes and will take away from a rigid focus on moving items quickly through the existing production process. Management must be ready to accept some time away from current work to focus on changes with longer-range impact.
Personal Kaizen
So far, we’ve discussed kaizen in a business setting. It can also be used in other settings, including your personal life. To implement it, just set a regular time for reflection on the things you do – perhaps daily at a specific time or a couple of times per week. Pay special attention to regular things you do that don’t go very well. Perhaps your family is always in the car later than planned? Do you dread a specific chore on the weekend that takes a long time? Look for small ways you can improve these practices, and be patient! Over time, small improvements will combine into faster, better ways to do the things you need to accomplish.
What Can Go Wrong?
Kaizen is a new way of looking at things, and as with any change, things can go wrong. Here are some common issues with implementations:
-Management doesn’t support change: one of the underlying assumptions in kaizen is that employees are able to make small, ongoing changes in their work. If management does not allow modifications, the effort will fail.
-Frustration with slow results: some companies and cultures focus on quick, dramatic improvements and can find a focus on making small changes very frustrating.
-Employees not motivated to change: in some companies, members of the long-term staff have performed the same function for many years in the same way. They may be reluctant to consider alternatives to their current methods or to change any aspects of their proven model.
What Are the Alternatives?
Kaizen has a focus on small, slow, ongoing change. This fits well with some cultures, but some others are more focused on quick, hard-hitting methods of improvement. In those cultures, a better fit might be Business Process Re-engineering (BPR) programs, where a team reviews all current processes and then suggests new ones that would still meet company goals and metrics but with increased productivity or reduced costs. In this type of program, larger changes are implemented in a fairly short timeframe, and then they are held constant while results are tabulated.
Lesson Summary
Kaizen is a Japanese word meaning continuous improvement. It’s made up of two characters in Japanese: kai, which means ‘change,’ and zen, which means ‘good.’ It’s used to describe a company culture where everyone, from the CEO to the front desk clerk, regularly evaluates his or her work and thinks of ways to improve it. The concept is that small steps on a regular basis will lead to large improvements over time.
To implement it, all employees should receive training on the concept of kaizen and should have some guidelines in terms of what they need to do before implementing a change. It’s also important that management be trained and be behind the effort. Kaizen may not work if management doesn’t support change, employees have frustration with slow results, or employees are not motivated to change. One alternative to kaizen is Business Process Re-engineering (BPR) programs, where a team reviews all current processes and then suggests new ones that would still meet company goals and metrics but with increased productivity or reduced costs.