Kaizen the most important concept in Japanese management is the key to Japanese

competitive success.Kaizen means continuous improvement involving everyone

which broadly includes top management , managers and workers.In order to survive
and grow in the competitive business environment a company has to be quick in
adopting both latest technology as well as improved management techniques.Both
innovation and KAIZEN are required for long term sustainance in the market
successfully.

Chap 1 KAIZEN, The Concept

KAIZEN is an umbrella concept covering most of those uniquely Japanese practices

that has recently achieved worldwide fame such as customer orientation, Total
quality control, suggestion system, kamban, just-in-time, zero defects, productivity
improvement, new product development, etc.

The message of kaizen strategy is that no day should go without some kind of
improvement being made somewhere in the company.the difference between the
Japanese perception of job function and western perceptions of job functions is that
in Japanese way the innovation, improvement and maintenance is the role of
everyone in the organization including topmanagement middle management
supervisors and workers whereas in western way innovation is the role of only top
management and middle management and top management shows relatively more
im portance in maintenance when compared with that of the Japanese style.and
improvement is hardly found in western style and they feel contended as far as
things goes well as usuall. The need of improvement is not been identified.The
chapter also explains the hierarchy of kaizen involment in an organization by the
top management, middle management supervisors and workers.

The starting point for improvement is to recognize the need . this comes from
recognition of the problem.therefore kaizen emphazises problem awareness and
provides clues for identifying problems.Thus kaizen is also a problem solving
process.Building quality into the process is the crux of Japanese quality control.Total
quality control(TQC) concentrates on the improvement of managerial performance
such as quality assurance, cost reduction, safety, supplier management and most
recently it also includes marketing , sales and service as well.

Japanese management also takes efforts to involve employees in kaizen through

suggestions.Whenever a suggestion yields savings , management rewards in
proportions to savings realized.It believes that workers willingly follow the new
standards when it is been framed considering their inputs.kaizen also generates
process oriented thinking because processes should be improved first inorder to get
better results. And this in total contrast towards result-oriented thinking of most
western managers.However the process-oriented thinking runs the risk of lacking
long-term strategy, missing new ideasand innovations.One of the distinctive
features of Japanese management is that it has made conscious effort to establish a
system that supports and encourages process oriented thinking while giving full
recognition to the result oriented thinking.The process oriented way of thinking
bridges the gap between ends and means and helps people to see the whole picture
without bias.

Chap 2 - Improvement East and West.

There are 2 contrasting approaches to improvement namely, the gradualist

approach epitomized by the term Kaizen and the great-leap-forward approach
epitomized by the term innovation.Innovation is generally a one shot phenomenon
and hence dramatic whereas KAIZEN is continuous process and hence results are
seldom Immediately visible.

The difference between the two opposing concepts can be compared to that of
staircase and slope.Innovation strategy is supposed to bring about progress in a
staircase pattern but usually does not.This is because a system established as a
result of new innovation is subject to steady deterioration unless continuous efforts
are made to maintain it and then to improve on it.

Kaizen , on the other hand means a constant effort not only to maintain but also to
upgrade standards.The strength of Japanese management lies in its successful
implementation of a system that acknowledges the ends while emphasizing the
means.Thus kaizen is people oriented whereas innovation is technology and money
oriented.

Kaizen is better suited for the slow growth economy which is been characterized by
high cost of energy and materials, overcapacity and stagnant markets.Another
strenghth of Japanese technology is the close connection between development,
design, and the production line.And the quality of products have always been better
than those from US or European nations because the French designers do not fully
understand the problems encountered on the jobfloor. Hence the management
should be supportive and should have rapport with the workers.Thus kaizen requires
different kind of leadership which is based on personal experience and conviction
and not necessarily on authority, rank or age.It is believed in japan that
improvement brings many truly satisfying experiences in life – identifying problems,
tackling and solving difficult tasks, and thus being elevated to new heights of
achievement.