Kaizen: from understanding to action

Kaizen has become part of the Japanese manufacturing system and has contributed enormously to the manufacturing success, evolving over a period of forty years. Kaizen in Japan has evolved to become the almost universal tool for production divisions to achieve their strategic goals. In every company, it operates in a different way to suit the circumstances but all consider it indispensable. It is more flexible and tolerant than may be expected and it can live with social differences but not social barriers. Kaizen cannot deal with all problems and even in Japan, one size does not fit all but a flexible implementation does open up the dimension of collaboration between the workforce, the management and the technical departments. This review of Kaizen in Japan will put Kaizen in context before the presentations of some real ideas on Kaizen in the UK. It is intended to make the audience aware of some fundamental concepts of Kaizen so they can think for themselves how this new dimension of collaboration could be applied in their own company. It also presents some of the liabilities and demands which have accompanied Kaizen in Japan which should not be ignored. (10 pages)