KAIZEN

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November 28, 2019

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STEM 11-B
I. Introduction

Competition for business is continuously increasing. In every business there is a prior

mindset or strategies, they all have a management systems and one of the most popular and
leading management system today is the kaizen. All businesses must continually seek out
methods to increase quality and reduce waste. Many companies are embracing Lean
methodology and Kaizen is one of the main pillars of it.
South Africa countries of Ethiopia, Kenya, Ghana Zambia and Tanzania have been using
the Kaizen. Before it was introduced to the whole world, it was first used or practiced in Japan,
and other countries have adopt this practice also for the improvement or innovation of their own
companies or businesses.
Kaizen has been described in many ways, differing slightly in the definition for the word
Kaizen, but keeping the overall idea of Kaizen the same. One definition states that it is actually
two words: the first Kai, meaning change and the second Zen, meaning good. Another source
stated that the definition of Kaizen is improving everybody, every day, everywhere. Yet another
stated that Kaizen simply means to improve. Kaizen is improvement, improving processes,
products, workplaces and people.
It involves all the people or the manpower behind a successful company. Kaizen
philosophy has been implemented in organizations around the world as a way to improve
production values while also improving employee morale and safety.
The kaizen philosophy may be applied to any workplace scenario due to its simple
nature. Taiichi Ohno, a philosopher, business man, and engineer together with Shigeo Shingo,
also an engineer and an entrepreneur developed the kaizen at Toyota. The kaizen in important
tool for lean manufacturing, the Toyota Production System (TPS). Just in time other effective
manufacturing strategies.
The ultimate objective of manufacturing industries is to increase productivity with high
quality. At present, many manufacturing companies are facing problems such as high quality
rejection, high inventories, high lead time, high costs of production, and inability to cope with
customer orders. It is one of the powerful tools of lean manufacturing. Kaizen refers to
continuous improvement in performance, cost and quality. Kaizen ensures that manufacturing
processes become leaner and fitter, but eliminate waste (problem) where value is added.
The main objective of this term paper is to provide a background on kaizen, present an
overview of kaizen concepts that are used to transform a company into a high performing lean
enterprise and also for us to think critically about it.
References

https://searcherp.techtarget.com/definition/kaizen-or-continuous-improvement
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaizen
http://www.leansixsigmadefinition.com/kaizen/