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Masaaki Imai made the term famous in his book Kaizen: The Key to Japan's Competitive Success. [1] In the Toyota Way Fieldbook, Liker and Meier discuss the kaizen blitz and kaizen burst (or kaizen event) approaches to continuous improvement. A kaizen blitz, or rapid improvement, is a focused activity on a particular process or activity.
A kaizen process. Some successful implementations use the approach known as kaizen (the translation of kai ('change') zen ('good') is 'improvement'). This method became famous from Imai's 1986 book Kaizen: The Key to Japan's Competitive Success. [7] Key features of kaizen include:
The principles of the Toyota Way are divided into the two broad categories of continuous improvement and respect for human resources. [7] [8] [9] The standards for constant improvement include directives to set up a long-term vision, to engage in a step-by-step approach to challenges, to search for the root causes of problems, and to engage in ongoing innovation.
2012: "Gemba Kaizen: A Commonsense Approach to a Continuous Improvement Strategy, 2nd Edition" (McGraw Hill) 1997: "Gemba Kaizen: A Commonsense, Low-cost Approach to Management" (McGraw Hill) 1986: "KAIZEN™: The Key to Japan’s Competitive Success" (McGraw Hill) 1975: "Never Take Yes for an Answer: An Inside Look at Japanese Business."
Quality circles were at their most popular during the 1980s, but continue to exist in the form of Kaizen groups and similar worker participation schemes. [2] Typical topics for the attention of quality circles are improving occupational safety and health, improving product design, and improvement in the workplace and manufacturing processes.
Kaizen costing is a cost reduction system used a product's design has been completed and it is in production. [1] Business professor Yasuhiro Monden [ 2 ] defines kaizen costing as The maintenance of present cost levels for products currently being manufactured via systematic efforts to achieve the desired cost level.
[2] The tool has seen use beyond Toyota, and is now used within Kaizen, lean manufacturing, lean construction and Six Sigma. The five whys were initially developed to understand why new product features or manufacturing techniques were needed, and was not developed for root cause analysis. In other companies, it appears in other forms.
Example of a worksheet for structured problem solving and continuous improvement. A3 problem solving is a structured problem-solving and continuous-improvement approach, first employed at Toyota and typically used by lean manufacturing practitioners. [1]