kaizen
In Japanese, ‘Kaizen’ means ‘continuous improvement’, from ‘kai’ meaning to change/do better and ‘zen’ meaning ‘good’.
The Kaizen philosophy arises from the Toyota Style, an approach that made Toyota one of the world’s largest automakers.
Kaizen’s goal it’s about creating an energized and vibrant workplace that respects people, gives them the will to fight, and in doing so increases their sense of self-esteem.
What is the real work that people should be doing in the workplace?
According to the Kaizen approach, people work not only to provide their work, but also to use their creativity to improve the way things are done.
Small continuous improvements (Kaizen) add up to big benefits: faster delivery, lower costs, and higher customer satisfaction.
Chores become simpler and easier, speed and efficiency is increased, processes are redesigned, a sure work environment is maintained product quality is constantly being improved.
The overall purpose of Kaizen is ‘to create a vibrant workplace where every individual makes a contribution’.
How to apply Kaizen in the workplace
1. Ask everyone to look around their own work area to see discover small problems.
At the same time, consider a possible way to solve this problem.
Kaizen is not just about finding a problem; is to be creative to find a possible solution.
Send that problem, with a possible solution, to the Kaizen Committee, who can think of another, perhaps more elegant, solution. If they so wish, that committee has the authority to take action.
2. Suggestion Box or Kaizen Board
Under kaizen, all staff are empowered to pinpoint gaps, inefficiencies, and offer suggestions for improvement.
Put a suggestion box or bulletin board in a central area, or let people add ideas to an online document on your intranet.
3. Kaizen Committee
A Kaizen Committee can be made up of 5-10 team members from different levels of the organization, each of whom is passionate about change and improvement.
The committee meets weekly for no more than an hour to discuss staff improvement ideas and steps that can be taken to improve that situation.
You can call this group anything you like, for example ‘Improve Group’.
4. Kaizen Board or Ideas Board
You can place a bulletin board with 4 headings:
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Ideas
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To do
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making
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Done
Or just have an Ideas Board with 4 segments:
Low Effort / High Benefit
High Effort / High Benefit
Low effort / Low benefit
High effort / low benefit
Include a ‘hall of fame’ area to showcase quick wins as they happen, with ‘before’ and ‘after’ photos. Acknowledge the person who came up with the idea by adding their photo.
Locate it in a central area and make it showy. People are drawn to adding new ideas to the board and are able to keep up with what the Kaizen committee is doing.
5. Kaizen report
A Kaizen report is short and simple. Summarize the before and after.
Before: we had this problem.
we take this Values.
Effect: it got a little better.
Be a problem solver
Anyone can become a problem solver. The challenge of looking for ways to improve makes the job interesting, while also benefiting the organization.
Build a culture of stopping to fix problems. Empower people to locate a problem worth solving.
Make it easy for people to make suggestions; then get back to them with an answer.
Kaizen your work
Ask people to kaizen their work by continually asking, ‘How can we do this differently?’