Kaizen and Continuous Improvement

Fundamentals

Kaizen means change for the better. Continuous improvement taken literally means everything is getting better all the time. Sometimes a distinction is made between kaizen, which is interpreted as small incremental changes, and kaikaku, which refers to big change. This is not necessary since “change for the better” can be big or small. Henry Ford once said, “Nothing is particularly hard if you divide it into small jobs,” and if you look closely at big game-changing innovations, they have been achieved through many small steps, some dead-ends, and others’ progress toward the vision.

Kaizen is a Japanese word and is often associated with Japanese manufacturing, particularly the Toyota production system (TPS). The book that first popularized the core concepts of TPS was The Machine That Changed the World. This book introduced the phrase lean production as a new management paradigm as significant as the shift from craft to mass production. Lean production spread as programs first in industry and then into the service sector and has taken on a life of its own with different interpretations by different authors, consulting groups, and organizations. One simple classification is into two categories: tool-oriented lean (mechanistic) and people-oriented lean (organic). The original TPS in Toyota is the latter, and the tools and lean processes highlighted problems that could shut down production, driving active problem solving. The role of people was to think creatively about how to solve those problems, but people had to be developed to have the skills for solving the problems, which Toyota invested in deeply, mostly through on-the-job development with skilled coaches (called sensei ).

As Toyota globalized, it became clear that there was a need to take the philosophy underlying TPS and make what Japanese members learned on the job explicit so it could be taught in the hundreds of companies in which Toyota had operations and sales [Page 416]offices. The resulting document, The Toyota Way 2001, defined two pillars that represent the core philosophy of the company: respect for people and continuous improvement. The underlying principles, more general than manufacturing, have become an aspiration for organizations throughout the world in all sectors, including industry, government, education, defense, health care, mining, and financial services. A related concept is lean management, which focuses on eliminating waste from processes. Unfortunately, the concept of lean is often misinterpreted as a program led by experts to reduce cost through waste reduction. In reality, lean thinking is virtually synonymous with continuous improvement, or kaizen, which requires engaged people, skilled in a discipline problem-solving methodology.

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