The Concept of Kaizen. Management Research Paper Essay

The Concept of Kaizen
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The Concept of Kaizen
Part I
Introduction
The concept of Kaizen refers to systematic activities that aim at continuous improvement of company functions. The emphasis in this concept is the need to involve all employees at every level of management down to the subordinates for the purposes of continuous improvement. The principle also relates to consumer-oriented strategy. In this case, the underlying principle that guarantees inclusiveness, continuous evolution of the entire organization. Further, it involves the empowerment of cross-functional teams that challenges the status quo that reflects the principles of efficient customer experience management. The principle of Kaizen makes an assumption on the fact that the manager of a particular task should have the most knowledge concerning the task. In this case, exposing them to the responsibility of continuous improvement concerning the task, there is possibly a transfer of ownership directly to those executing the task who ensures involvement of the entire organization (Desai and Mokashi, 2018).
History of Kaizen
The management techniques during the 1980s focused more on employee involvement alongside empowering through teamwork as well as interactive communications. The focus was also on the improvement of job design. However, the Japanese firms seemed to be effective in the implementation of these techniques as compared to others. This led to the development of a philosophy based on the fact that Japanese firms, considering global competitiveness, revealed a greater level of commitment towards the philosophy of continuous improvement as compared to their Western counterparts. This led to the development of the term Kaizen as a presentation of this philosophy from the Japanese. Therefore, Kaizen represents the Japanese philosophy that signifies process improvement and which roughly translates into “to break apart and investigate” and “improving upon the existing situation” (Haque et al., 2014).
Kaizen can best be referred to as the means of continuous improvement that encompass everyone within an organization from top to bottom. The Japanese management, as well as workers, upholds this concept with high esteem to the point of considering the principle as a customer-driven strategy for improvement. The philosophy works on the assumption that every area of our life (social, spiritual or personal) deserves to be continuously improved. There is the use of common sense and involves rigorous, scientific methods through statistical quality control as well as an adaptive framework of organizational values and beliefs. This ensures that employees alongside the management focus on zero defects through the processes. Engraved upon the philosophy is the principle of never being satisfied with yesterday’s accomplishments. However, it begins with the admission of existence of problems that eventually creates opportunities for change. This demands continuous improvement that largely depends on every individual across the team functions within the organization. In essence the people performing a task besides being knowledgeable should be encouraged to have confidence in their capabilities which eventually raises the ownership of the process to the highest possible levels (Khan, 2011).
How Kaizen fits in Organizational Management elements
The aspect of team effort encourages the process of innovation as well as change. The involvement of layers of employees breaks the walls that may otherwise easily hinder inter-communication, therefore, making room for product improvements. This shows that Kaizen is not only an approach mechanism for manufacturing processes and competitiveness. It entails everybody since its premise is based on the concept that improvement is a requirement for every individual. The kaizen workshop ensures that an individual’s job is made easier through study and making substantive improvements. It ensures that every person becomes a contributor, therefore, providing an attitude for process improvements. Kaizen acts as an umbrella concept that encompasses various continuous improvement activities within every domain of an organization (Kumar et al., 2018).
For example, the Kaizen techniques were evident when it was applied in Toyota for the reasons of raising its standards on the platform of world automotive leadership. The principle challenged the company’s status quo, thereby, driving the process changes towards quality improvements. In this case, Toyota encouraged the employees to identify problems, however small, check the root cause of the problems and eventually implement necessary solutions. This aspect generated process-oriented thinking and was directed on people’s efforts to discover and solve the small problems within the company. The technique never focused on employees as the root cause of the problem but rather emphasized the fact that employees can be source of solution through understanding the necessary changes and how their job fits into the process (Kumar et al., 2018).
Importantly, the emphasis on the process within Kaizen philosophy goes beyond creating design on effective processes. There is a requirement for the teams to come to the understanding of why a process works and the possible modifications or improvements that can be made. A process-emphasis approach involves mapping of the process for the reasons for understanding the flow of the product. However, there is dire need for specific tools and techniques for improvement of process quality. This includes the training of operators as well as the supervisors (Zaludin and Derasol, 2019). Further, Kaizen promotes the role of visual management as one of its concepts. This aspect helps people in the identification of different problems as well as promoting the empowerment process. Visual management as a practice encompasses a clear revelation of tangible objects, records of performance, charts that are key in reminding the management on occurrence of different forms of defects. This provides the management and employees clear visibility on the state of either normal or abnormality, therefore, a clear focus on performance. Such visual control on management focuses on team rather than individual performance or efforts. Visual controls are a prerequisite to visual management and can eventually replace bureaucratic monitoring systems applicable in many organizations for control of mechanisms. The other key aspect of Kaizen points to the fact that it is a never-ending process of improvement.
Kaizen has been us...