Kaizen refers to continuous improvement processes that aim to eliminate waste. It originated in Japan after WWII and was influenced by American experts who taught statistical process control. Kaizen focuses on gradual improvement through small changes involving employees at all levels. There are three main types: individual suggestions, quality circles for day-to-day team improvements, and special event "kaizen blitzes" for rapidly improving processes over several days through cross-functional teamwork. Key elements are quality improvement, employee involvement, and openness to change.

1. Kaizen
Definition
Japanese term for a gradual approach to ever higher standards in quality
enhancement and waste reduction, through small but continual improvements
involving everyone from the chief executive to the lowest level workers.
Popularized by Mosaki Imai in his books 'Kaizen: The Key To Japan's
competitive Success.'
MEANING
Kaizen (改善 ?), Japanese for "improvement" or "change for the better",
refers to philosophy or practices that focus upon continuous improvement of
processes in manufacturing, engineering, supporting business processes, and
management. It has been applied in healthcare,[1] psychotherapy,[2] life-
coaching, government, banking, and many other industries. When used in the
business sense and applied to the workplace, kaizen refers to activities that
continually improve all functions, and involves all employees from the CEO to
the assembly line workers. It also applies to processes, such as purchasing and
logistics, that cross organizational boundaries into the supply chain.[3] By
improving standardized activities and processes, kaizen aims to eliminate
waste (see lean manufacturing). Kaizen was first implemented in several
Japanese businesses after the Second World War, influenced in part by
American business and quality management teachers who visited the country.
It has since spread throughout the world[4] and is now being implemented in
many other venues besides just business and productivity.
History
After World War II, to help restore Japan, American occupation forces
brought in American experts to help with the rebuilding of Japanese industry.
The Civil Communications Section (CCS) developed a Management Training
Program that taught statistical control methods as part of the overall
material. This course was developed and taught by Homer Sarasohn and
Charles Protzman in 1949 and 1950. Sarasohn recommended W. Edwards
Deming for further training in Statistical Methods. The Economic and

2. Scientific Section (ESS) group was also tasked with improving Japanese
management skills and Edgar McVoy is instrumental in bringing Lowell
Mellen to Japan to properly install the Training Within Industry (TWI)
programs in 1951. Prior to the arrival of Mellen in 1951, the ESS group had a
training film done to introduce the three TWI "J" programs (Job Instruction,
Job Methods and Job Relations)- the film was titled "Improvement in 4
Steps" (Kaizen eno Yon Dankai). This is the original introduction of "Kaizen"
to Japan. For the pioneering, introducing, and implementing Kaizen in Japan,
the Emperor of Japan awarded the Second Order Medal of the Sacred
Treasure to Dr. Deming in 1960. Consequently, the Union of Japanese Science
and Engineering (JUSE) instituted the annual Deming Prizes for
achievements in quality and dependability of products in Japan. On October
18, 1989, JUSE awarded the Deming Prize to Florida Power & Light
Company (FPL), based in the United States, for its exceptional
accomplishments in its process and quality control management. FPL was
"the first company outside of Japan to win the Deming Prize."
Implementation
The Toyota Production System is known for kaizen, where all line personnel
are expected to stop their moving production line in case of any abnormality
and, along with their supervisor, suggest an improvement to resolve the
abnormality which may initiate a kaizen.
The PDCA cycles
The cycle of kaizen activity can be defined as:
• Standardize an operation
• Measure the standardized operation (find cycle time and amount of in-
process inventory)

3. • Gauge measurements against requirements
• Innovate to meet requirements and increase productivity
• Standardize the new, improved operations
• Continue cycle ad infinitum
This is also known as the Shewhart cycle, Deming cycle, or PDCA.
Masaaki Imai made the term famous in his book Kaizen: The Key to Japan's
Competitive Success.
Apart from business applications of the method, both Anthony Robbins and
Robert Maurer, PhD[7] have popularized the kaizen principles into personal
development principles. In his book,One Small Step Can Change Your life:
The Kaizen Way and his eight CD set, The Kaizen Way to Success, Dr. Maurer
looks at both personal and professional success using the kaizen approach.[8]
In their book The Toyota Way Fieldbook, Jeffrey Liker, and David Meier
discuss the kaizen blitz and kaizen burst (or kaizen event) approaches to
continuous improvement. A kaizen blitz, or rapid improvement, is a focused
activity on a particular process or activity. The basic concept is to identify and
quickly remove waste. Another approach is that of the kaizen burst, a specific
kaizen activity on a particular process in the value stream.[9]
WebKaizen Events, written by Kate Cornell, condenses the philosophies of
kaizen events into a one-day, problem solving method that leads to prioritized
solutions. This method combines Kaizen Event tools with PMP concepts. It
introduces the Focused Affinity Matrix and the Cascading Impact Analysis.
The Impact/Constraint Diagram and the Dual Constraint Diagram are tools
used in this method.[10]
Key elements of kaizen are quality, effort, involvement of all employees,
willingness to change, and communication.
TYPES
Kaizen is an improvement process that has evolved substantially over the
years. As a result, the term Kaizen has developed to have multiple meanings.
There are three types of Kaizen:
!) Teaian kaizen - Individual Versus Teamed

4. While almost all Kaizen approaches use a teamed approach, there is the
method described as Teian Kaizen or personal. This is the more traditional
suggestion system: Teian Kaizen refers to individual employees uncovering
improvement opportunities in the course of their day-to-day activities and
making suggestions.
It does not include making the change itself, but simply the suggestion for the
change. This is the only part of the Kaizen culture to focus on the individual
instead of a team. Even so, it does not advocate personal action to improve a
process, but suggestions by individuals which will then be assessed by a team.
2) Quality Circles - Day-to-Day Versus Special Event
An example of a day-to-day Kaizen approach is Quality Circles. Here, a
natural work team (people working together in the same area, operating the
same work process) uses its observations about the work process to identify
opportunities for improvement. During any day or perhaps at the end of the
week, the team meets and selects a problem from an earlier shift to correct.
They analyze its sources, generate ideas for how to eliminate it, and make the
improvement. This continuous improvement of the work process is made in
the context of regular worker meetings.
3) Special events: Kaizen Blitz technique - Large-Scale Vs. Small-Scale
Improvement
Although Kaizen is a Japanese concept, many U.S. firms have adopted it with
considerable success by combining the best of traditional Japanese practices
with the strengths of Western business practice.
Traditional Kaizen is, by definition, long term, a gradual incremental change
results in small improvements throughout the organisation. A Kaizen Blitz or
Kaizen Event (or as it should be called, Kaikaku) is fast and furious: it rapidly
implement workcells, improves setups or streamlines processes. These
methods plan ahead and then execute a process improvement over a period of
days.
The rules:
• Develop a vision of the future.
Having defined what is happening now a future state map is created
which defines what should be happening if the world was perfect.

5. Realistic but challenging elements are drawn out from this to create a
vision for what life will be like by the end of the week. This could be
done during or prior to the event.
• Involve everyone.
For a blitz to work everyone has to be involved. This may mean shutting
down a line or a department for the duration of the event. Planning the
event and telling the rest of the organisation is therefore critical. If this
proves to be impossible, as many people as possible should be released.
• Prepare the group.
It is essential that everyone involved is trained in how to perform a blitz.
There will be times during the event when people’s paradigms will be
seriously tested and, without proper preparation, people will find these
times very stressful.
• Plan for success.
Choosing the right target for a blitz is also critical. The event must be
built for success particularly if it’s the first one. Choose something that
will have a big impact on the people as well as the organisation. The
blitz is not a project tool so selecting something that can be addressed in
a week is a challenge. Too big and it will fail, too small and it won’t have
the impact.
• Keep the kaizen training to what is actually needed for the event.
It makes absolutely zero sense to go into the details of a SMED system
(Single Minute Exchange of Dies) if your event has no change-overs as
an obstacle to improvement.
• Provide the kaizen training at the right time.
Many kaizen event training programs spend valuable training time the
first day teaching how to complete a report out on Friday. By the time
Friday rolls around, they end up teaching this portion of the training all
over again because everybody has forgotten the lesson during the week.
Mention the report out on Monday morning, leaving the details for
Friday morning prior to the report out. When Friday arrives, bring the
team together for the quick "How-to-do-a-report-out" session and then
the team goes to work without many questions.
• Properly scale the scope of the kaizen event.
How many kaizen events bring an elephant to the table for a small team
of five people to try to eat in one week? Keep the scope in line with the
resources at hand.
• Keep your kaizen goals simple.
Many times a kaizen event will put a long list of targets or goals on the
team to accomplish, productivity, cycle time, 5-S, floor space, quality,

6. etc. All these goals are noble and beneficial however they may leave a
team running in too many directions. Pick one goal to focus your kaizen
team.
• Pick the right lean tool for the job and use it well.
There are plenty of lean tools to choose for kaizen activities so your
must determine the right tool and use it well.
• Buy-in, Buy-in, Buy-in.
Without buy-in of the operators in a new process, the improvements of
the week will not last past the Friday report-out. It is critical to get the
process owners to buy-in to the new process.
• Go to gemba and stay there the entire week.
With the exception of your Monday morning training and eating lunch,
your kaizen team must remain in the kaizen area the entire week. It s
important to have a meeting table, a few chairs and a flip chart placed
in your kaizen area sharing information with the area (along with all
those that passed by) throughout the kaizen process. Not only did this
remove the muda of walking back and forth to an offsite meeting room,
it also limited the team debates on the actual process. Share information
on display with your kaizen newspaper for all to see. No secrets, nothing
to hide. Even the daily team leader meeting and the final report out
were conducted at gemba.
• Speak with data.
Hearsay or opinion have no place in a blitz. Decisions to make changes
are made based on real hard data gained from the current state.
Elements
There are five main elements of kaizen. They are :-
• Teamwork
• Personal discipline
• Improved morale
• Quality circles
• Suggestions for improvement

7. What Are The Benefits Resulting From Kaizen?
Kaizen is focused on making small improvements on a continuous basis.
Kaizen involves every employee in making change—in most cases small,
incremental changes. 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.
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 moral 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, worker motion, employee skills, over production, excess
quality and in 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.

8. EXAMPLES
1) The Kaizen attitude requires a willingness to accommodate
permanent change.
2) Examples of Kaizen are often times the most effective ways of
showing just how this method can be used in the workplace. Kaizen,
Continuous Process Improvement and many other techniques in
Lean Manufacturing involve a great deal of thinking outside of the
box, a task that can be quite difficult to do when you have been
running with the same operation system and managerial tactics for
the life of your business. Thinking differently is much harder than
many people think. These examples of how other companies use
Kaizen may help to spark some creative ideas of how you can apply
similar innovation in your own production system.