Kaizen
Kaizen also applies to processes, such as purchasing and logistics, that cross organizational boundaries into the supply chain.
[2] After being introduced by an American, Kaizen was first practiced in Japanese businesses after World War II, and most notably as part of The Toyota Way.
Deming is particularly recognized for his PDCA cycle—Plan, Do, Check, Act—which advises stopping production when deviations occur to identify and resolve issues before continuing.
[6] However, given the common practice in Japan of labeling industrial or business improvement techniques with the word kaizen, particularly the practices spearheaded by Toyota, the word kaizen in English is typically applied to measures for implementing continuous improvement, especially those with a "Japanese philosophy".
Examples of point kaizen include a shop inspection by a supervisor who finds broken materials or other small issues, and then asks the owner of the shop to perform a quick kaizen (5S) to rectify those issues, or a line worker who notices a potential improvement in efficiency by placing the materials needed in another order or closer to the production line in order to minimize downtime.
Improvements are made up and down through the plane, or upstream or downstream, including the complete organization, suppliers and customers.
The 7W checklist possibly goes back to Cicero as an original tool for rhetoric: Related to the 7W questionnaire is the principle of "Go to the source" (Genchi Genbutsu).
Furthermore, managers should get an idea of the situation on site, for example a production process, and not make decisions from afar.
In the field of quality management, this principle is used in failure mode and effects analysis to identify potential weaknesses.
In all, the process suggests a humanized approach to workers and to increasing productivity: "The idea is to nurture the company's people as much as it is to praise and encourage participation in kaizen activities.
"[12] People at all levels of an organization participate in kaizen, from the CEO down to janitorial staff, as well as external stakeholders when applicable.
Kaizen on a broad, cross-departmental scale in companies generates total quality management and frees human efforts through improving productivity using machines and computing power.
Large-scale pre-planning and extensive project scheduling are replaced by smaller experiments, which can be rapidly adapted as new improvements are suggested.
The small-step work improvement approach was developed in the USA under Training Within Industry program (TWI Job Methods).
[16] Instead of encouraging large, radical changes to achieve desired goals, these methods recommended that organizations introduce small improvements, preferably ones that could be implemented on the same day.
The major reason was that during WWII there was neither time nor resources for large and innovative changes in the production of war equipment.
As part of the aid to allied nations after the war, not directly including the Marshall Plan after World War II, American occupation forces brought in experts to help with the rebuilding of Japanese industry while the Civil Communications Section (CCS) developed a management training program that taught statistical control methods as part of the overall material.
The Economic and Scientific Section (ESS) group was also tasked with improving Japanese management skills and Edgar McVoy was instrumental in bringing Lowell Mellen to Japan to properly install the Training Within Industry (TWI) programs in 1951.
Subsequently, the Union of Japanese Scientists and Engineers (JUSE) instituted the annual Deming Prizes for achievement in quality and dependability of products.
[24] Masaaki Imai made the term famous in his book Kaizen: The Key to Japan's Competitive Success.
