The KAIZEN and the Japanese Company Culture

In the March of 2005 I have participated in a nearly one month long training program for the acquirement of the japanese management and production culture, organized and financed by the japanese and the hungarian goverment. The highly intensive training procedure was prepared and realized by the most authentic representatives of the japanese KAIZEN philosophy and the participants were selected from the circle of the special experts and the professors of this area from Hungary and the other newly joined EU member countries. The presence of the best managers and advisors of the japanese company culture and the real multicultural character of the group of the participants made it possible the spiritually deep analysis and the practice oriented acquirement of the KAIZEN philosophy, which has its roots in the strongly impressive japanese history and the characteristical japanese national culture. At the beginning of the course we acquired the principal bases and then, in full cooperation with the japanese trainers, we made workshop practices introducing ourselves into the KAIZEN management. At the next phase we visited and studied some of the hungarian firms having the best KAIZEN system in the east-european region, and finally we made a field practice at the ACTARIS CO., evaluating and improving their inventory and packaging system. The whole training procedure was determined and deeply influenced by the japanese company culture, but the participants strongly and fluently represented their own national and company culture, so it was a good possibility to learn that how can we use the positive developments of the interference and the synergie effect of the cross-cultural operation of a multi-cultural working group. Summarizing the main results of the training and the researching work of the last one and a half year it can be stated that the whole procedure made us possible the acquirement of the KAIZEN approach. In the first part of this study I give a small introduction to the basic elements of the KAIZEN management, then I give some details how we could use these methods in the analysis of the situation, the elaboration and the presentation of our recommendations for solving the inventory and the packaging problems at ACTARIS CO., and finally I underline the importance of the results of the japanese company culture in the management of an up to date and globally competitive company.