Kaizen

Kaizen is a system of continuous improvement in quality, technology, processes, company, culture, productivity, safety and leadership.

Kaizen is Japanese term for "improvement" or "change for the better". It comes from the Japanese words 改 ("kai") which means "change" or "to correct" and 善 ("zen") which means "good". Kaizen was created in Japan following World War II.

It refers to philosophy or practices that focus upon continuous improvement of processes in manufacturing, engineering, supporting business processes, and management. It has been applied in healthcare, psychotherapy, life-coaching, government, banking, and many other industries. When used in the business sense and applied to the workplace, kaizen refers to activities that continually improve all functions, and involves all employees from the CEO to the assembly line workers. It also applies to processes, such as purchasing and logistics that cross organizational boundaries into the supply chain.

Everyone is encouraged to come up with small improvement suggestions on a regular basis. This is not a once a month or once a year activity. It is continuous. In Japanese companies, a total of 60 to 70 suggestions per employee per year are written down, shared and implemented. Suggestions are not limited to a specific area such as production or marketing. Kaizen is based on making changes anywhere that improvements can be made.

Kaizen involves setting standards and then continually improving those standards. To support the higher standards Kaizen also involves providing the training, materials and supervision that is needed for employees to achieve the higher standards and maintain their ability to meet those standards on an on-going basis.