Kaizen is a Japanese business philosophy and concept that focuses on continuous improvement and involves all employees from the CEO to the assembly line workers
. It has been applied in various industries, including healthcare, psychotherapy, life coaching, government, manufacturing, and banking
. The term "Kaizen" means "change for the better" or "continuous improvement"
. It is core to lean manufacturing and the Toyota Way
. Kaizen aims to eliminate waste and redundancies, improve productivity, and promote innovation
. It is based on the idea that small, ongoing positive changes can lead to significant improvements
. Kaizen has its origins in post-World War II Japanese quality circles, which were developed partly in response to American management and productivity consultants, such as W. Edwards Deming
. There are three main types of Kaizen:
- System Kaizen : This is an organized manner that addresses system-level problems in an organization and is an upper-level strategic planning method for a short period of time
- Line Kaizen : This refers to communication of improvements between the upstream and downstream of a process, which can be extended in several ways
- Plane Kaizen : This is a daily process that aims to humanize the workplace, eliminate overly hard work, and teach people how to perform experiments on their work using the scientific method and how to spot and eliminate waste in business processes
Kaizen has been adopted by many companies, most notably Toyota, which considers it a core value
. It has been applied in various forms, such as value stream mapping and Total Quality Management, which is a management framework that enlists workers at all levels to focus on quality improvements
. The successful use of Kaizen in an organizational setting depends on gaining support for the approach across the organization and from the CEO down
