Continuous Improvement (Kaizen)

Continuous Improvement in Japanese means Kaizen. The entire workforce is focused on continually improving quality, productivity, and customer satisfaction is known as a “Kaizen culture”. It is not common in the business world to achieve this level of commitment from the employees of the organisation. Companies like Toyota has this culture embedded in their DNA, it is one of their four pillars.

The kaizen culture ensures the workforce is empowered. Employees feel free to take action; free to do the right thing. They spontaneously swarm on problems, discuss options, and implement fixes and improvements. The work force is without fear to make mistakes, failure is an opportunity to learn. A kaizen culture focuses on systems-level thinking while making local improvements that enhance overall performance.

An integral part of Kaizen is Toyota’s famous five-why analysis. The true problem solving requires identifying root cause rather than source; the root cause lies hidden beyond the source. The answer lies in digging deeper by asking why the problem occurred. Asking Why? five times requires taking the answer to the first why and then asking why that occurs. Typically, the process of asking Why? leads upstream in the process.