
Dr B K Mukhopadhyay
(The author is a Professor of
Management and Economics, formerly at IIBM (RBI) Guwahati. He can be contacted at m.bibhas@gmail.com)
Dr. Boidurjo Rick Mukhopadhyay
(The author, internationalaward-winning development and management economist, formerly a Gold Medalist in Economics at Gauhati University)
Kaizen is an approach to continuous, incremental impro-vement. Kaizen means con tinuing improvement in personal life, home life, social life, and working life. When applied to the workplace Kaizen means continuing improvement involving everyone – managers and workers alike." Putting it simply, 'Kaizen' means improvement or good change, a concept that originated in Japan and the word roughly translates to change (kai) for the good (zen). 'Fine tuning' or a 'quick fix' would not fully capture the essence of this concept since change isn't a light switch. Fine-tuning is generally an ongoing endeavour, a process that can be collectively improvised over time. Kaizen is based on the philosophical belief that everything can be improved, this means that nothing is ever seen as a status quo – there are continuous efforts to improve which result in small, often imperceptible, changes over time. These incremental changes add up to substantial changes over the longer term, without having to go through any radical innovation. It can be a much gentler and employee-friendly way to institute the changes that must occur as a business grows and adapts to its changing environment.
The six steps to this Kaizen Philosophy are 1) Standardise – this step includes identifying the goal and coming up with a process to achieve it, 2) Measure – the second step measure the results of the continuous action (e.g., organizations can run 'temperature check' on employee or customer satisfaction), 3) Compare – the third step is to compare and evaluate if the new method or approach is saving time and getting one closer to the goal, 4) Innovate – explore and recognise alternative ways to get things done and diversify one's practice, 5) Standardise – once the 'one best way to do a job' is found, it should be repeatable and standardised, 6) Repeat – this is when one goes back to step one (i.e. standardise) and repeats the six steps once again. Gaining operational and functional efficacy takes time and therefore endurance and perseverance are key attributes to have.
Kaizen can improve productivity, effectiveness, safety, and waste reduction. Another concept closely related to Kaizen is muda which means waste. As mentioned earlier, one of the benefits that Kaizen provides is reducing waste by removing inefficient practices or overproduction, improving quality, increasing operational efficacy, reducing float or idle time, also removing unnecessary activities (e.g. marketing departments of companies can learn what works best, above the line or below the line approaches or perhaps word-of-mouth works the best – and stick with it). Interesting, this practice of Kaizen improved manufacturing processes in Japan, examples can be found in their automobiles, technology and consumer good industry amongst others.
A) Kaizen in an organizational context with examples
With Kaizen practices embedded at both project and operations management levels, an organization with an extensive supply chain, for example, beverage or clothing industry, can benefit from less waste, more satisfied and therefore committed employees leading to low attrition rates, improved competitiveness (lower costs and improved competitive edge), higher rate of customer feedback and satisfaction (lower price and higher quality products), improved problem-solving mechanisms in place with continually refined alternative development.
In India, for example, the hospitality and manufacturing sectors could benefit from building a workplace based on Kaizen principles. As mentioned above, much of the focus is on reducing waste. Movement, for example, in the form of constant job rotation and revolvement can destabilise a worker's mental focus. While multi-tasking is fun and useful, it does not allow 100% concentration on any one thing at a time. Therefore, providing less than satisfactory customer service is a common scene in an everyday business scenario. From airports, banks to IT companies, poor customer service is a severe and deep-rooted challenge to address.
At Ford, under the leadership of Mark Fields, they publicly shared that they used Kaizen principles to gain a competitive advantage in the industry. They focused on implementing practices to make their processes more efficient while continually investigating ways to reduce time by slowly but surely, correcting procedures in ways that ensure that every single time a process is repeated. This helps both efficiency and efficacy over time.
Similarly, Lockheed Martin is a company leading in global aerospace, defence, security and advanced Technologies Company. In the period from 1992-97, the company reduced its costs of manufacturing while lowering its defect rate to 3.4 instances per plane; and lowering its order to delivery time from 42 months to below 22. In the area of material management, they were able to reduce the time to move parts from receiving to stock from 30 days to four hours. Kaizen methodologies led to efficiency gains from lean manufacturing processes.
B) Kaizen at a more individual level, and how we can 'be Kaizen'
"Becoming 1 per cent better every day is a simple, practical way to achieve big goals…One per cent seems like a small amount. Yes, it is. It's tiny. It's easy. It's doable." Oppong shares in his work on how kaizen leads to self-improvement.
Improving focus by reducing movement and distractions are essential areas of attention. Waste of time, another domain where smart everyday practices can bring colossal improvements in business and personal practice. While we are focused on 'green building' and 'energy efficient' workplaces, more focus is needed in daily work practices from simple ideas on punctuality, better document archiving, focused group meetings, better time management and customer as well as employee focus.
Another area that could reduce waste is manager over-processing. This could range from (a) over-innovating a product where the customer loses value rather than gaining from it, (b) inviting more people in a meeting than necessary to share a message or develop an idea. The 'one pizza' meeting rule introduced by Jeff Bezos at Amazon is something that we can learn from.
C) Personal, organizational, and collectively strive to improve the 'way of things'
Individuals and organizations aiming to introduce a Kaizen approach at work could firstly, identify areas where key resources, i.e., time and energy are wasted. Finding ways to reduce waste, even if it starts from a basic stage and developing a 'less is more approach. In addition, attention and focus leaks should also be the key focus. Track progress made from time to time and compare if the newly adopted practices are giving consequential results. Developing a repeatable practice should be next.
Secondly, developing small steps to improve productivity and operational efficiency. Although our instinct is to go big and therefore struggle to get started with basic steps, the focus can be to make incremental improvements over time. Starting small is also appealing at first, it also requires patience. It also needs reminding us what we need to manage when aiming for something big is energy more than time. For a small business based out on innovation models, incremental models work better than radical ones. For individuals, timing a day and events better would create newer free time where one could reflect and improve effectiveness. Continually refining ways of doing things goes a long way than being a slave to old habits and beliefs.
Finally, allocating time to revise and compare results to see what's working and identifying areas of improvement. During busy periods, we don't take a frequent stock of things and this is where attention or output or innovation leaks can occur. Setting aside time to review newer changes and also realising consequent results generated are essential steps in Kaizen practice. This could be once a day or even a week/end. At the same time, take some time to appreciate any progress made. Kaizen is a long-term practice-based process, and therefore the journey is mixed with positive and negative experiences. Newer changes may or may not work for some in a particular context but continually refining and finding better ways of doing things brings about a holistic development in personality or a company's performance.
At both personal and organisational levels, Kaizen aims at reducing interruptions and finding ways to improve productivity, focus and output. It may range from writing a book, developing a public project, finishing off a painting or exam revision, to building a creative project or business model. The four principles of Kaizen provide good reminders, firstly that believing every process could be improved and that includes established processes that result in acceptable levels of output. E.g., waste reduction and customer service. Secondly, to understand that process or system failures are consequences of imperfect processes and not necessarily people. e.g., improved design thinking and human-technology interfaces help. Thirdly, everyone in a given organisational context has at least one core role to play in the change or improvement. e.g., employee inclusion in problem-solving and identifying market risks and opportunities. Fourthly, maintaining an open mindset and recognising that every small change could lead to long-term impacts at both personal and organisational levels while abandoning methods or rituals that are silent inhibitors no matter how embedded they may seem.