Kaizen1(2)

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KAIZEN

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What is KAIZEN?

Japanese term for a gradual approach to ever higher standards in quality enhancementand waste reduction, through small but continual improvements involving everyone from

the chief executive to the lowest level workers.

Kaizen is a system that involves every employee - from upper management to the

cleaning crew. Everyone is encouraged to come up with small improvement

suggestions on a regular basis. This is not a once a month or once a year activity. It is

continuous. Japanese companies, such as Toyota and Canon, a total of 60 to 70

suggestions per employee per year are written down, shared and implemented.

In most cases these are not ideas for major changes. Kaizen is based on making little

changes on a regular basis: always improving productivity, safety and effectiveness

while reducing waste.

Suggestions are not limited to a specific area such as production or marketing. Kaizen

is based on making changes anywhere that improvements can be made. Western

philosophy may be summarized as, "if it ain't broke, don't fix it." The Kaizen

philosophy is to "do it better, make it better, improve it even if it isn't broken,

because if we don't, we can't compete with those who do."

Kaizen or ‘Continuous Improvement’ is a policy of constantly introducing small

incremental changes in a business in order to improve quality and/or efficiency. Thisapproach assumes that employees are the best people to identify room for

improvement, since they see the processes in action all the time. A firm that uses this

approach therefore has to have a culture that encourages and rewards employees for

their contribution to the process.

Kaizen can operate at the level of an individual, or through Kaizen Groups or Quality

Circles which are groups specifically brought together to identify potential

improvements. This approach would also be compatible with Team working or Cell

Production, as improvements could form an important part of the team’s aims.

Key features of Kaizen:

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• Improvements are based on many, small changes rather than the radical

changes that might arise from Research and Development

• As the ideas come from the workers themselves, they are less likely to be

radically different, and therefore easier to implement

• Small improvements are less likely to require major capital investment than major

process changes

• The ideas come from the talents of the existing workforce, as opposed to using

R&D, consultants or equipment – any of which could be very expensive

• All employees should continually be seeking ways to improve their own

performance

• It helps encourage workers to take ownership for their work, and can help

reinforce team working, thereby improving worker motivation

Over the years, the sheer volume of Kaizen improvements can lead to major advances

for a firm, but managers cannot afford to overlook the need for radical change from time

to time. For example, many UK manufacturers and service companies have found it

necessary to outsource processes to cheaper centres such as India and China – these

changes would be unlikely to arise from Kaizen.

Whilst staff suggestions can help to enrich the work for many employees, Kaizen can be

seen as an unrelenting process. Some firms set targets for individuals or for teams to

come up with a minimum number of ideas in a period of time. Employees can find this to

be an unwelcome pressure, as it becomes increasingly difficult to find further scope for

improvement. Some firms especially Japanese-owned, conduct quality improvement

sessions in the workers’ own time, which can lead to resentment unless there is

appropriate recognition and reward for suggestions.

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For Kaizen to be effective there has to be a culture of trust between staff and managers,

supported by a democratic structure and a Theory Y view of employees. Good two-way

communications and a de-layered organisation would also support this approach.

Nevertheless, some workers might see the demands as an extra burden rather than an

opportunity and it can take time to embed Kaizen successfully into an organisation’s

culture.

The five main elements of kaizen

• Teamwork

• Personal discipline

• Improved morale

• Quality circles

• Suggestions for improvement

Teamwork:

Teamwork is the ability to work together toward a common vision. The ability to direct

individual accomplishment toward organizational objectives. It is the fuel that allows

common people to attain uncommon results. Team works helps to build an organization

to achieve its goal with their hard work.

Personal Discipline:

Personal Discipline is a must for every employee in an organization. It means to followrules of the organization and also follow some personal rules like cleanliness,

orderliness, punctuality etc.

Improved Morale:

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Morale is the state of mind or mindset towards a particular thing or activity. In an

organization, an employee should have a positive attitude towards the responsibilities

he shoulders. To improve the morale of the employee, the employer must motivate and

encourage the employee and reward his good work.

Quality Circles:

A quality circle is a group of workers, usually under the leadership of their supervisor,

who are trained to identify, analyse and solve work-related problems and present their

solutions to management in order to improve the performance of the organization, and

motivate and enrich the work of employees. They play an important role in improving

occupational safety and health, improving product design, and improvement in theworkplace and manufacturing processes.

Suggestions for Improvement:

Every employee must take an active role in suggesting various small but helpful

improvements in the organization. These improvements shouldn’t be forced but should

be at the will of the employee. Kaizen is a constant progress towards betterment

through constant small but gradual improvements.

What Are The Benefits Resulting From Kaizen?

Kaizen involves every employee in making change--in most cases small, incrementalchanges. It focuses on identifying problems at their source, solving them at their source,

and changing standards to ensure the problem stays solved. It's not unusual for Kaizen

to result in 25 to 30 suggestions per employee, per year, and to have over 90% of those

implemented.

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For example, Toyota is well-known as one of the leaders in using Kaizen. In 1999

at one U.S. plant, 7,000 Toyota employees submitted over 75,000 suggestions, of

which 99% were implemented.

These continual small improvements add up to major benefits. They result in improved

productivity, improved quality, better safety, faster delivery, lower costs, and greater

customer satisfaction. On top of these benefits to the company, employees working in

Kaizen-based companies generally find work to be easier and more enjoyable--resulting

in higher employee morale and job satisfaction, and lower turn-over.

With every employee looking for ways to make improvements, you can expect results

such as:

• Kaizen Reduces Waste in areas such as inventory, waiting times,

transportation, employee skills, over production and in over processes.

• Kaizen Improves space utilization, product quality, use of capital,

communications, production capacity and employee retention.

• Kaizen Provides immediate results. Instead of focusing on large, capital

intensive improvements, Kaizen focuses on creative investments that continually

solve large numbers of small problems. Large, capital projects and major

changes will still be needed, and Kaizen will also improve the capital projects

process, but the real power of Kaizen is in the on-going process of continually

making small improvements that improve processes and reduce waste.

Getting Started With Kaizen

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For most Indian companies Kaizen involves a significant change in the corporate

culture. This is the key. The attitudes of employees - from top management down to

new hires will need to change. Kaizen needs to become something all employees do

because they want to, and because they know it is good for them and the company. It

cannot be something employees do because management dictates that it be done.

That means that if management isn't ready to lead by example, Kaizen will not get off

the ground.

Employee training and communication is important. Combined with that, direct

involvement by the management is critical. For example, a manager spending a week

on the shop floor working with employees to help and encourage them to develop

suggestions will help. That manager should also ensure employees see their

suggestions acted on immediately. Suggestions should not be implemented next monthor next week, but today. In some cases, a suggestion submitted in the morning can be

implemented that afternoon, or sooner

Keep employees informed about what happens with their suggestions. Don't have

suggestions disappear into a management "black hole."

To get Kaizen started it can be helpful to bring in outside experts. They can work in your

facility identifying problems that those close to the work may not see. This serves as a

"seed" allowing employees to see how Kaizen works and to experience the benefits of

Kaizen.

A significant obstacle to Kaizen in many corporations is that problems are seen as

negatives. We don't like problems. Someone who is associated with a problem is likely

to be negatively impacted (a lower raise, missed promotion, or even fired). In Kaizen,

problems are opportunities to improve. With Kaizen we want to find, report, and fix

problems. Kaizen encourages and rewards the identification of problems by all

employees.

To encourage the submission of suggestions, a part of each supervisor's evaluation

should be based on the number of suggestions submitted by those they supervise.

Don't evaluate employees on the number of suggestions they submit, evaluate your

supervisors and managers and how well they are doing at getting those who work for

them to actively participate in Kaizen.

Managers should develop methods to help create suggestions and increase the number

of suggestions.

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For example, projects are distributed amongst groups which are formed voluntarily by

students. Each group has 6 members. Now Kaizen comes into picture when the group

elects a leader and the work gets distributed amongst members. Now from observing

the previous performances of the other group and your own group itself, to analyzing

the mistakes made by the same, every member comes out with certain ideas or plans

to improve on it and make it better.

The 5S Methodology

The 5S process is a reference to a list of 5 Japanese words that are the name of a

methodology. The 5 S methodology is a philosophy and a way to organize and manage

the workspace and work flow in your business to improve efficiency by eliminating

waste, improving flow. They are

Seiri - tidiness

Seiton - orderliness

Seiso - cleanliness

Seiketsu - standardization

Shitsuke - discipline

Seiri (Tidiness)

Seiri, which means organization or sort, is used to put things together or to organize

them by using specific rules. In other words it means to maintain tidiness at theworkplace. It is about identifying the necessary things and the unnecessary things and

then putting the necessary things into order and getting rid of the unnecessary things

immediately. It is about cleaning things up, which can include throwing things away that

are no longer needed or instead of throwing things away it can just be moved into a

different area so that one can easily find them if ever needed that item again. And the

best part about this is that when one gets rid of or put away the things that is not going

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to be used in the future it is going to make room for the things that are going to be used

so that they are easier to find.

Seiton (Orderliness)

Seiton means to straighten or set in order. This step involves a complete focus on

efficiency. The intent of this step is to arrange the tools, equipment and parts after a

manner that will promote proper work flow. The tools should be placed in an area that

promotes work flow and are easy to find. The objective for this phase of the 5 S

program is that everything has a place and that everything should be put into its place.

This is actually accomplished through properly identifying and labeling items in the

workplace. Seiton has two important parts. The first part is putting everything in its

proper place. The second part is labeling. The reason for that is everything that is used

and their proper storage locations need to be clearly identified and labeled so that

people can make sure that they return the item to its proper place so it can easily be

found the next time.

Seiso (Clean Up)

Seiso is the sweeping phase or the systematic cleaning of the workplace to keep it neat

and tidy. Seiso is a daily activity that should be performed at the end of each shift to

ensure everything is cleaned, and restored to its proper place. Seiso makes it easy to

know where everything goes and what items are essential to the workplace.

Seiketsu (Standardisation)

Even a clean work place with proper selection and proper arrangement will soon

become dirty if Seiri, Seiton and Seiso are not continuously repeated. Hence Seiketsu is

applied. It means standardizing. Having standardized work practices allows a company

to operate in a consistent and standardized manner. Everyone in the company will know

exactly what their job description is and know how they fit into the 5 S methodology.

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Shitsuke (Discipline)

Shitsuke means discipline. This last phase is the "glue" that holds the entire process

together. Unfortunately people are not perfect. Shitsuke recognizes this and focuses on

creating a workplace with good habits. Bad habits can be broken with proper training

and practice. Applied to the 5 S methodology, Shitsuke serves as the underlying toolthat can help everything go smoothly and function properly. Discipline also includes

outlining responsibility. If everyone has clearly outlined job positions, they will

understand that they have a certain amount of responsibility for their job and they will

know what they need to do in order to complete the task. Everyone needs to feel

responsible for some aspect in order to feel that they are contributing to the overall

success of the organization.

The 5 S Methodology will help to provide a good framework for improvement. Everyone

in the company can come together and tackle what the problems are and find ways to

fix them. The 5S Methodology finds the root cause of the problem, and implementsprocedures like organization, neatness, cleanliness, standardization, and self-discipline.

The PDCA Cycle

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The PDCA Cycle (Plan, Do, Check, Act) is also commonly known as the Demming

wheel, named after W. Edwards Demming, a Quality Management pioneer. The cycle is

a well known model for CPI, or continual process improvement. It is also a basic

foundation for the various iterative and spiral process models in IT project management.

The PDCA cycle is a valuable process that can be applied to practically anything. ThePDCA cycle involves four basic steps – Plan, Do, Check and Act. These are:

• Plan – To identify and recognize a particular problem, break it down into

smaller, more manageable components, select one for improvement and outline

the methods and solutions that can be taken to solve this problem / component.

This phase also included establishing correct metrics through which we can

measure concretely the factors cause the problem.

• Do – Known as the prototyping phase in IT projects, this involves testing the

proposed change on an experimental basis and/or on a small scale. Such

caution is warranted; this minimizes the risk of disrupting regular processes, and

allows management to test whether such changes will actually make a positive

impact or not (without running the risk of reducing productivity or affecting

profits).

• Check – An evaluation of the tests carried out (i.e. the ‘Do’ phase). Usually

problems and their impact are measured by certain metrics (decided in the ‘Plan’

phase), and this phase circles around measuring results in the Do phase versus

benchmark results specified in the Plan phase. In project management

terminology, this means evaluating key performance indicators in light of

experimental changes in a practical setting.

• Act – An implementation of the proposed changes in case the tests (Do phase)

prove successful (established by the ‘Check’ phase). This phase transforms the

proposed changes into integrated practices within your regular business

processes.

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These four steps complete the ‘cycle’ – the journey from facing the problem (Plan

phase) to solving the problem (Act phase).

Conclusion

Kaizen is a management technique that every organization must adopt in today’s

competitive corporate world. It is a technique that helps improve any factor involved in

an organization.

Kaizen1(2)

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