Kaizen in Action
At the core of the success of many Japanese corporations is one simple concept, kaizen. Toyota is a great example of a very well known company who can credit much of their success to the use of kaizen. Toyota uses this simple concept along side their commitment of "creating people-friendly vehicles" and have been able to make constant creative and focused improvements to their cars and business practices for many years.
How does kaizen work? To answer that we first need to explore what exactly kaizen is. Simply translated, kaizen is a Japanese word meaning "improvement" or "change for the better". Which sounds great, but every struggling company will say that they are looking for ways to improve or make better changes. This is more than just a word, it is a concept that doesn't simply give people the power to make observations and form new ideas, but actually requires it of them. These observations and new ideas answer all kinds of questions helpful to a company, such as:
- Is there room to make it better?
- Could production be more efficient?
- Is there a way for it to be more fun?
All of these questions fall under the great umbrella question for business improvement: "Can it be fun/better/faster/cheaper?" But, it's not these questions which make kaizen what it is, it's the way the answers to these questions are expected, and the openness with which the answers are received. The following story is taken from a book* written by Mr. Hiroshi Ishibashi (current president of System Science Co., Ltd., a Japanese consulting firm specializing in kaizen work), it very clearly illustrates this cultural concept in action. Mr. Ishibashi was sent to Toyota with several other top executives from associated companies to learn about the "Toyota Way" directly from Mr. Taiichi Ohno (the former vice president of Toyota and father of the Kanban System which revolutionized manufacturing).
I arrived with many other executives and, without even a greeting, we were immediately told to simply "go to the site". From 8am until noon we were given a tour of the Toyota press plant. After the long tour we returned to the Toyota offices and were met by Mr. Ohno and a request. The request was "Please make a list of 100 wastes you witnessed in the plant today."
I was immediately very confused. My, and my colleagues, first reaction was "What? Waste? What waste...?" All of my work experience had been white-collar, half of it in management, I was overwhelmed with having to make a list about an aspect of production which had never before entered my mind.
To this confusion Mr. Ohno answered "You spend half the day touring our plant, and you cannot provide us with anything in return?" To this day I have not forgotten those words, or what was implied by them. How surprised and even disappoint he was that we had all spent time touring the plant, we must have been able to find some waste somewhere. I was too embarrassed to say "I did not find anything" so I, and all my colleagues thought hard and each came up with about a dozen things.
I remembered the oily liquid that seemed to be flowing out of the plant continuously and wrote about it "If this waste is eliminated, I think you will be able to save this much oil." To which Mr. Ohno responded "Just state the waste". Which meant don't waste time, state the conclusion first and directly. So I revised my statement to "It is a waste to keep discharging so much oil". After seeing the final lists Mr. Ohno said "Thank you very much. We have been able to find so much waste" and then he left the room.
The list we had come up with was distributed to the site manager and the improvements were made in less than a week! Toyota informed us, who thought we had come to learn from them, that our list of wastes had very much benefited the company.
From this story it's easy to see how Toyota, built on a foundation if kaizen, has become one of the most superior corporations in not just Japan but the entire world. Always asking, what can be done, and then quickly doing it, is a wonderful thing.
*Ishibashi, Hiroshi. (2005) Kashi Keiei. Tokyo: Nikkei Business Publications, Inc.
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