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Who, what or where is ‘Kaizen’?A few months ago I blogged about Continuous Improvement and the Plan-Do-Check-Act cycle. These are excellent principles, but I am often asked how you put them in place; what do you actually do in the workplace to achieve Continuous Improvement? Well, I particularly like to use the Japanese methodology of ‘Kaizen’, which translates as simply ‘Improvement’. Kaizen is an organic, grass-roots type of change process in which individuals or small working groups make small, frequent, beneficial improvements in their own day-to-day area of activity because they want to and because they know it will help themselves and the company. Over time these small improvements all add up and make a huge difference. Kaizen is the opposite of “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” It aims to improve all areas of the business whether they are broken or not. It is more of a working philosophy than a ‘try once, then abandon’ initiative and is so quick and easy to do, and the results can be so immediate, that it becomes part of your culture. As with many of the best ideas, Kaizen is deceptively simple, often to the point of people saying “there’s nothing special about it” or “we already do something like it”. Think again! Its strength is in its simplicity and effectiveness; done properly it can bring surprising benefits surprisingly quickly and cheaply. So what do you need in order to implement Kaizen?
A typical process will follow the Plan-Do-Check-Act cycle and will look something like this:
You may need a small time or materials budget, but the nature of Kaizen is that it usually really is small and the benefits pay it back many time over. The changes in processes, methodologies, tools, or environment should be permanent – you want the benefits to stick and not be easily reversed. You will need to keep Kaizen going and not let it die through neglect after a few weeks of initial enthusiasm. The Kaizen process should therefore be integrated into your normal working life – build it into your supervision processes and your staff appraisals: “How many ideas have you generated and implemented? How do we help you generate more?”, build Kaizen sessions into your team meetings or briefings, maybe have a standard weekly half-hour ‘Kaizen slot’, etc. Finally, bear in mind that Kaizen is all about getting small improvements quickly and easily. To counter the cynics make sure that lots of ideas are generated, make sure they get acted on immediately, and keep people fully informed about the process. When people see how useful it can be they will join in and you will end up with a better business. |
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