Lean manufacturing and Kaizen

Kaizen is one of the most important concepts in lean manufacturing. The meaning of the Japanese word “Kaizen” continuous improvement. When it comes to Just In Time systems or lean manufacturing, the system must change continuously in order to deliver the value to customers. For an example lean manufacturing always wants to eliminate wastes from the system. Finding and eliminating wastes from the system continuously is a Kaizen activity.

Kaizen concepts are different to the traditional management concepts. For an example one of the most important theories of traditional management principle is the Management by exception. The simple meaning of this is that if everything is going OK then there is no need to change the way the system operate. But when it comes to lean manufacturing and kaizen, it challenges the existing systems and find out ways in which the system can be improved. Another very important aspect of kaizen is trust on organizational employees to come up with the improvements. This helps the system in many ways. People who carryout the work knows about the work they do best. Therefore they can come up with the ideas to improve it. Less resistance in change is another factor which will help in implementing and maintaining the system.

In a workplace where kaizen is practiced small improvements to the system is made continuously. This makes the system dynamic. Changes bring high value to the system and are less costly. Employees are generally motivated. Importantly these organizations can win the competition.