Kaizen philosophy

07/24/2020

Kaizen definition

In Japanese, Kaizen generally means change for the better. In business practice, it is the daily improvement of processes with the involvement of each employee. Each work improvement that leads to increased safety, company efficiency and work quality is called Kaizen. In Polish companies using Lean Management, it is often used as a replacement for the words: idea, suggestion for improvement.

Kaizen scheme

The principle of kaizen is to improve and change the constantly ongoing process for the better. The purpose of the introduced changes is:

  • shortening the process implementation time,
  • improvement of quality,
  • technical changes to system components for appropriate adaptation,
  • cost reduction,
  • creating appropriate evaluation and award criteria.

Achieving these goals leads to an increase in the efficiency of the work performed, and may contribute to the improvement of ergonomics and work safety.
In practice, kaizen often takes a formalized form, which consists of the following elements:

  1. New job position for the supervisor.
  2. A fairly wide range of duties means that this function is assigned to one person working full-time. This person is almost always responsible for spreading the idea and training employees accordingly.
  3. Introduction of an improvement form, available to every employee.
  4. It can be in paper or electronic form. The completed application can be sent to the Kaizen mailbox or directly to the person responsible for the program.
  5. Decision to accept the application or to reject it.
  6. This decision depends on the type of request that may be related to an already implemented improvement. The decision-making process - whether to accept the application or not, may be more extensive and involve other employees (management) of the area concerned.
  7. Introducing activities proposed in the application
  8. These activities may be undertaken by: the author of the application, the person coordinating the kaizen activities, other persons or departments assigned to given areas.
  9. Announcing information on accepted applications and rewarding the best ideas.
  10. Often, tables or other summary lists of all ideas are published and those that have been implemented are marked. The team of employees who play this role in the plant may participate in the selection of the best applications.