Kaizen Is a Japanese term: Kai (improvement) and Zen (good) which translates to (Continuous improvement).

The concept of Kaizen is based on the “Training Within Industry” (TWI) programs which were developed in 1951after WW2 as part of rebuilding the Japanese industry.

Kaizen is a robust tool that helps to improve all functions and involves all employees from the CEO to the front line employees as it goes beyond solving a problem or implementing a corrective measure. It helps to harmonize the work and develop a healthy atmosphere, which improves productivity and makes the employees able to spot problems and find practical solutions for them.

Kaizen is about achieving improvements by taking small steps instead of big changes as the British saying “slowly but surely”. This makes it a low-risk method and encourages the employees to propose ideas and try them; however, if an idea does not work, they can always revert the changes without incurring large costs.

Benefits of Kaizen:

• Employees’ engagement increases their sense of responsibility towards their organization.
• Lowering turnover and increases productivity.
• Improves commitment to the organization and its goals.
• Improves competitiveness.
• Supports teamwork culture.
• Helps to identify minor errors and solve them before they develop and cause negative impact on the overall process.

The Kaizen Process

The continuous cycle of Kaizen activity has six phases:

1. Identify a problem or opportunity:

Problem identification is the cornerstone of the problem-solving process along with opportunities, that the accurate identification leads the problem solving them to gather the relevant data and unites the efforts of the team to utilize an opportunity or solve a problem permanently.

2. Analyze the process:

Identifying each step in the process starting from the inputs (raw materials, finance, human resources… etc.) to the outputs (products or services) along with analyzing each step to its smallest manageable elements to (change, modify, eliminate or improve) it.

3. Develop an optimal solution:

After that, the problem-solving team should recommend alternatives and compare between them to select the optimum one, hence executing it.

4. Implement the solution:

Implementing the optimum solution through a (long – mid – short) term plan depending on the depth of the problem and its effects on the system. However, the planning process should address each executive step and who is responsible for the implementation, along with setting performance standards for further evaluation and control.

5. Study the results and adjust:

This is an ongoing step with the plan implementation to measure the gap or detect the variation from the plan so that corrective measures take place.

6. Standardize the solution:

After testing the solution for a sufficient period and observing the standardized outcomes, it is time to make the proposed solution or action a standard and measure the future outcomes to it.

The cycle of kaizen activity can be defined as: “Plan → Do → Check → Act”. This is also known as the Shewhart cycle, Deming cycle, or PDCA.

When Implementing Kaizen, you need to ask 5W and 2H questions. According to the answer you get for each question, your actions can be (eliminate, change, simplify and improve). You can apply this method in any type of business as the following:

Conclusion:

It is of paramount importance that the problem-solving team contains both experts and front line staff and people who have hands-on the process as they are a reliable source of information and may see and know some little detail which the root cause of a problem or an opportunity lies in it.