Continuous Improvement
(Kaizen) Culture in Japan and in the West
Kaizen is a Japanese
workplace philosophy which focuses on making continuous small
improvements. Kaizen is constant. It is not a problem based
approach.
Workers come up with new ideas and submit them all the
time, and quality circles meet frequently. Any hiccup on the factory
floor results in the meeting of a quality circle to talk about the
issue and discuss changes to implement. As a result,
Japanese
companies are continuously becoming more efficient and streamlined,
allowing them to effectively
compete with other companies which also
integrate the Kaizen
philosophy into their daily practice.
Implementing Kaizen: 7 Conditions
Many well known Japanese
companies such as
Toyota and
Canon use Kaizen, with a group approach
which includes everyone from
CEOs to janitors on the factory floor.
This group approach has been adopted successfully in other regions
of the world as well, but Japanese workers have refined it to an art
form. It is Kaizen
mindset and process-oriented thinking, as opposed to the
result-oriented thinking favored by most Western firms, that has
enabled Japanese industry to attain its
competitive edge
in the world markets.
It has been suggested that
Kaizen works particularly well because Japan is a collective
culture, and Kaizen relies on collective values. People in more
individualistic
cultures
may struggle with some of the basic principles of Kaizen.
Suggestion systems in
Japan and in the West have also different impact on company’s
operations. According to
Masaaki Imai, author of
Kaizen: The Key To Japan's Competitive Success, Japanese
managers have more leeway in implementing employee suggestions that
Western counterparts. Japanese managers are willing to go along with
a
change if it contributes to any of the seven goals of the
suggestion system. This is a sharp contrast to the Western manager's
almost exclusive concern with the cost of the change and its
economic payback.
