Home > Articles

The Philosophy Behind Kaizen and Kaizen Events

Kaizen is a Japanese word for “continuous improvement and incremental change,” and manufacturers need Kaizen’s continuous productivity improvement and waste reduction techniques more than ever. In this introduction to his book, Chris A. Ortiz describes the benefits of Kaizen and the theory behind and common mistakes made in a Kaizen event.
This chapter is from the book

When companies make the decision to embark on a lean journey, they frequently have a few misconceptions about the endeavor. First of all, some believe that lean is a program with definable starting and ending criteria. In addition, this “program” is supposed to have clear direction and paths that dictate what to do and when to do it. If lean is incorporated with this mind-set, the chances of failure are very high. The concepts of lean and kaizen are incorporated into business in a manner that is right for the company. If I compared how each of my clients has adopted lean, I would find one definable similarity: They started. Once a lean journey begins, who knows where it will go? In lean, there is no fixed path or one-for-all guideline.

I am not implying that lean journeys do not involve setting goals for improvement such as increasing productivity, reducing scrap, improving on-time delivery, reducing inventory, or decreasing throughput time, for example; but how each company works to accomplish these types of metrics is different. You cannot adopt one organization’s practices and apply them to your own organization in exactly the same way. I often see this confusion when teaching the “phenomenon” of lean. People struggle to connect the dots and see how it will work in their organization. It is this first misconception I would like to discuss in this chapter.

Kaizen

Kaizen is a Japanese word for “continuous improvement and incremental change.” The philosophy of kaizen is about involving everyone in the organization to focus on overall organizational improvements. The cornerstone of lean manufacturing is removing waste to better respond to the needs of the customer in regard to on-time delivery, competitive cost, and better quality. More important, kaizen emphasizes developing a process-oriented culture that is driven to improve the way a company operates. Think of the number of processes that exist in a company. A process generally has a starting point and an ending point. To clarify, the process of manufacturing and assembling a product starts with fabricating and processing parts from raw material; then those parts are fitted together to make the final product. This is a simple and crude example, but my point is that the process by which these products are built ends at some point, or else there would be nothing tangible remaining. Let’s apply this concept to an administrative/office environment. There is a process by which a purchase order is created or a contract is generated. Both processes have a start and an end, when the purchase is completed and sent to the warehouse or production floor, or when the contract is signed by both parties.

By removing waste, an organization becomes more productive, ensuring that it is serving the customer’s needs. This will bring a financial gain to the organization, but you cannot sell lean to a culture if you are only promoting its cost savings. Let’s be honest; reduced cost, better quality, and on-time delivery will not encourage all employees to change the way they think. The philosophy of kaizen brings much more to the table. Changing company culture is an ongoing battle, and you want to address issues that may arise early on. So in essence, kaizen is about coaching and mentoring people to become better at what they do in all aspects of their work. Buying expensive pieces of equipment or software will not bring the cultural change you need to make lean successful. These types of expenditures usually create a one-time improvement with minimal effort. By no means does this imply that there is no need for capital expenditures, but kaizen does not mean spending a lot of money.

So to refer back to what I previously wrote, there is no perfect road map for dealing with company culture, and it is this culture that will determine your level of success and distinguish your company from other organizations.

People of Kaizen

Some companies place the responsibility for process improvements on manufacturing engineers and managers. These individuals generally come up with the initial ideas to improve a work area, conduct the analysis and preplanning, and then implement the change. Production workers feel that the new process is being “pushed” on them because they were not given the opportunity to suggest improvements. This is not the case across all spectrums, but it is still a very common practice. In kaizen-based organizations, process improvements involve everyone from executive leadership down to the entry-level production worker. This includes the creation of the improvement idea, process analysis, preparation phases, implementation, and training. The kaizen philosophy not only encourages production workers to suggest improvements but requires that they do so. This can be difficult for some leaders to swallow because it essentially means relinquishing some of their authority in the improvement process. I have come across many plant and other upper managers who find it difficult to delegate decision making for the company. The most successful lean journeys occur, however, when upper and even executive managers back off and provide an environment that fosters change. When people are allowed to speak openly and make changes from their own perspectives, the possibilities are endless. Managers who allow and encourage this behavior will see far more progress in their organization’s lean journey than those who tend to make all the decisions themselves.

Leaders of Kaizen

How do kaizen and lean fit into a company’s vision? A common illusion that business leaders have is that lean is the one and only business strategy for the company. Lean is indeed a business strategy, but it should not be the all-encompassing focus. As organizations develop their overall vision and focus, lean has to be a major role player. Again, the concepts of lean and kaizen, when all is said and done, deliver value to the customer in terms of cost, quality, and delivery. A company’s culture must be driven to continuous improvement because it benefits the customer. Delivering that value is difficult because each customer is different and expectations are always changing. Lean transformation is one tool for achieving better customer relations, but there are other tools in a company’s strategy, such as improving supplier relations, training and mentoring employees, adding product lines, and capturing new markets and business segments. These are examples of possible “pillars” that would be part of a larger strategy. One of those pillars is lean/kaizen.

Becoming a leader of kaizen takes time because leaders are part of company culture just like engineers, maintenance personnel, and production workers. Transformation into a kaizen leader does not happen overnight. As I mentioned in the preceding section, kaizen leaders must learn to release some of their hold on authority and give it to everyone in the company so that change and improvements can spread through the organization. Next, kaizen leaders must not focus on the financial gain from lean but rather on using kaizen to help develop their people.

In my previous book, Lessons from a Lean Consultant, I wrote an entire chapter called Lean Leadership Made Simple. The mentality of company leaders who practice negative management techniques—working their people long hours and using them as cogs in the wheel—is devastating to the lean journey. Allow me to summarize from that chapter.

My personal experiences in the lean field have taught me a lot of valuable things, especially how to treat people. The companies I have assisted quickly realized that a new approach to leadership was needed to ensure success in their lean endeavors. I was by no means a perfect employee in the years leading up to starting Kaizen Assembly, and in fact I was a bit resistant to lean as well. However, I always maintained the belief that my resistance was normal and appreciated my great lean leaders. How we treat people in our lean journeys is the cornerstone of lean leadership.

I took all that I learned from my experiences and use it now to lead companies in a manner that seems fair and just. Organizations embarking on lean need effective leaders who understand the importance of employee contributions and how much their efforts and attitudes affect the success or failure of a company. Certain corporate leaders need to realize that although aggressive practices may result in short-term financial success, they also place the company on the path toward a precarious future.

Lean leaders are only human beings; therefore, they typically conduct themselves in a manner that reflects their personality. If individuals are generally grumpy and negative to change, their management techniques will reflect those characteristics, and they will affect the morale of others through their body language as well as their words. Individuals who are happy and positive tend to lead in the same manner. Lean leaders who do not let negativity influence their actions will create a following of positive thinkers.

Management techniques reflecting personalities can be categorized in the following ways. Poor lean leadership definitely results in lack of motivation, poor performance, high absenteeism, and, ultimately, high employee turnover. Poor lean leaders are easily recognizable because they have some or all of the following characteristics: They are focused on their own personal needs rather than the professional needs of their team; they are pessimistic rather than positive; they are poor listeners; they are lazy or lack motivation; they are stubborn or closed to new ideas; they are slow to adapt to change; they are blamers rather than responsibility takers; they provide bad or unclear direction; they have no idea who their people are; they are secretive; they are never available; their doors are always closed; they fear failure; they do not stand behind their people; they have difficulty developing their employees; they exercise leadership by control, manipulation, and coercion. None of these qualities is helpful in successfully engaging people in lean.

Effective lean leadership is not based on control, coercion, and manipulation. Lean leaders are focused on the future rather than the past. They gain respect by their ability to inspire others to work toward specific goals. Effective lean leaders help others to become better people; they create workplaces that attract good individuals, and they keep their workers happy, motivated to pursue excellence, and focused on continuous improvement.

Kaizen is simply a mind-set and philosophy of ongoing change and improvement. As a lean practitioner I am often asked how to deal with resistance to change. There is no perfect template or guideline for dealing with people. You and your company have to work continually with your employees and provide the support and accountability they need to mold them into your own change agents.

Benefits of Kaizen

Kaizen teams are created to provide a quick and positive impact on the organization. Each team member is handpicked according to his or her ability to make both measurable and nonmeasurable improvements. Kaizen events teach people the concepts of teamwork, meeting deadlines, interacting with different personalities, and pursuing excellence as a whole, and they open up employees’ creativity. Professional and personal relationships are developed during kaizen events that continue after the events are over. These are examples of nonmeasurable benefits that allow the organization to develop a culture driven toward continuous improvement. The other side to kaizen events is more measurable: Teams make improvements to key metrics that not only benefit the company from a performance perspective, but ultimately improve the relationship with the customer in regard to better cost, on-time delivery, and improved quality.

InformIT Promotional Mailings & Special Offers

I would like to receive exclusive offers and hear about products from InformIT and its family of brands. I can unsubscribe at any time.

Overview


Pearson Education, Inc., 221 River Street, Hoboken, New Jersey 07030, (Pearson) presents this site to provide information about products and services that can be purchased through this site.

This privacy notice provides an overview of our commitment to privacy and describes how we collect, protect, use and share personal information collected through this site. Please note that other Pearson websites and online products and services have their own separate privacy policies.

Collection and Use of Information


To conduct business and deliver products and services, Pearson collects and uses personal information in several ways in connection with this site, including:

Questions and Inquiries

For inquiries and questions, we collect the inquiry or question, together with name, contact details (email address, phone number and mailing address) and any other additional information voluntarily submitted to us through a Contact Us form or an email. We use this information to address the inquiry and respond to the question.

Online Store

For orders and purchases placed through our online store on this site, we collect order details, name, institution name and address (if applicable), email address, phone number, shipping and billing addresses, credit/debit card information, shipping options and any instructions. We use this information to complete transactions, fulfill orders, communicate with individuals placing orders or visiting the online store, and for related purposes.

Surveys

Pearson may offer opportunities to provide feedback or participate in surveys, including surveys evaluating Pearson products, services or sites. Participation is voluntary. Pearson collects information requested in the survey questions and uses the information to evaluate, support, maintain and improve products, services or sites, develop new products and services, conduct educational research and for other purposes specified in the survey.

Contests and Drawings

Occasionally, we may sponsor a contest or drawing. Participation is optional. Pearson collects name, contact information and other information specified on the entry form for the contest or drawing to conduct the contest or drawing. Pearson may collect additional personal information from the winners of a contest or drawing in order to award the prize and for tax reporting purposes, as required by law.

Newsletters

If you have elected to receive email newsletters or promotional mailings and special offers but want to unsubscribe, simply email information@informit.com.

Service Announcements

On rare occasions it is necessary to send out a strictly service related announcement. For instance, if our service is temporarily suspended for maintenance we might send users an email. Generally, users may not opt-out of these communications, though they can deactivate their account information. However, these communications are not promotional in nature.

Customer Service

We communicate with users on a regular basis to provide requested services and in regard to issues relating to their account we reply via email or phone in accordance with the users' wishes when a user submits their information through our Contact Us form.

Other Collection and Use of Information


Application and System Logs

Pearson automatically collects log data to help ensure the delivery, availability and security of this site. Log data may include technical information about how a user or visitor connected to this site, such as browser type, type of computer/device, operating system, internet service provider and IP address. We use this information for support purposes and to monitor the health of the site, identify problems, improve service, detect unauthorized access and fraudulent activity, prevent and respond to security incidents and appropriately scale computing resources.

Web Analytics

Pearson may use third party web trend analytical services, including Google Analytics, to collect visitor information, such as IP addresses, browser types, referring pages, pages visited and time spent on a particular site. While these analytical services collect and report information on an anonymous basis, they may use cookies to gather web trend information. The information gathered may enable Pearson (but not the third party web trend services) to link information with application and system log data. Pearson uses this information for system administration and to identify problems, improve service, detect unauthorized access and fraudulent activity, prevent and respond to security incidents, appropriately scale computing resources and otherwise support and deliver this site and its services.

Cookies and Related Technologies

This site uses cookies and similar technologies to personalize content, measure traffic patterns, control security, track use and access of information on this site, and provide interest-based messages and advertising. Users can manage and block the use of cookies through their browser. Disabling or blocking certain cookies may limit the functionality of this site.

Do Not Track

This site currently does not respond to Do Not Track signals.

Security


Pearson uses appropriate physical, administrative and technical security measures to protect personal information from unauthorized access, use and disclosure.

Children


This site is not directed to children under the age of 13.

Marketing


Pearson may send or direct marketing communications to users, provided that

  • Pearson will not use personal information collected or processed as a K-12 school service provider for the purpose of directed or targeted advertising.
  • Such marketing is consistent with applicable law and Pearson's legal obligations.
  • Pearson will not knowingly direct or send marketing communications to an individual who has expressed a preference not to receive marketing.
  • Where required by applicable law, express or implied consent to marketing exists and has not been withdrawn.

Pearson may provide personal information to a third party service provider on a restricted basis to provide marketing solely on behalf of Pearson or an affiliate or customer for whom Pearson is a service provider. Marketing preferences may be changed at any time.

Correcting/Updating Personal Information


If a user's personally identifiable information changes (such as your postal address or email address), we provide a way to correct or update that user's personal data provided to us. This can be done on the Account page. If a user no longer desires our service and desires to delete his or her account, please contact us at customer-service@informit.com and we will process the deletion of a user's account.

Choice/Opt-out


Users can always make an informed choice as to whether they should proceed with certain services offered by InformIT. If you choose to remove yourself from our mailing list(s) simply visit the following page and uncheck any communication you no longer want to receive: www.informit.com/u.aspx.

Sale of Personal Information


Pearson does not rent or sell personal information in exchange for any payment of money.

While Pearson does not sell personal information, as defined in Nevada law, Nevada residents may email a request for no sale of their personal information to NevadaDesignatedRequest@pearson.com.

Supplemental Privacy Statement for California Residents


California residents should read our Supplemental privacy statement for California residents in conjunction with this Privacy Notice. The Supplemental privacy statement for California residents explains Pearson's commitment to comply with California law and applies to personal information of California residents collected in connection with this site and the Services.

Sharing and Disclosure


Pearson may disclose personal information, as follows:

  • As required by law.
  • With the consent of the individual (or their parent, if the individual is a minor)
  • In response to a subpoena, court order or legal process, to the extent permitted or required by law
  • To protect the security and safety of individuals, data, assets and systems, consistent with applicable law
  • In connection the sale, joint venture or other transfer of some or all of its company or assets, subject to the provisions of this Privacy Notice
  • To investigate or address actual or suspected fraud or other illegal activities
  • To exercise its legal rights, including enforcement of the Terms of Use for this site or another contract
  • To affiliated Pearson companies and other companies and organizations who perform work for Pearson and are obligated to protect the privacy of personal information consistent with this Privacy Notice
  • To a school, organization, company or government agency, where Pearson collects or processes the personal information in a school setting or on behalf of such organization, company or government agency.

Links


This web site contains links to other sites. Please be aware that we are not responsible for the privacy practices of such other sites. We encourage our users to be aware when they leave our site and to read the privacy statements of each and every web site that collects Personal Information. This privacy statement applies solely to information collected by this web site.

Requests and Contact


Please contact us about this Privacy Notice or if you have any requests or questions relating to the privacy of your personal information.

Changes to this Privacy Notice


We may revise this Privacy Notice through an updated posting. We will identify the effective date of the revision in the posting. Often, updates are made to provide greater clarity or to comply with changes in regulatory requirements. If the updates involve material changes to the collection, protection, use or disclosure of Personal Information, Pearson will provide notice of the change through a conspicuous notice on this site or other appropriate way. Continued use of the site after the effective date of a posted revision evidences acceptance. Please contact us if you have questions or concerns about the Privacy Notice or any objection to any revisions.

Last Update: November 17, 2020