Kaizen
THE UNIVERSITY OF SYDNEY BUSINESS SCHOOL
CEMS/INTERNATIONAL MANAGEMENT PROGRAMME
MMGT6001 Strategy and Entrepreneurship written assignment on:
KAIZEN – CONTINUOUS IMPROVEMENT – LEAN MANAGEMENT
Holeček Václav SID 311304451 Term 2 2011/2012
TABLE OF CONTENT
Introduction 3 What is Kaizen? 3 Process orientation 4 Western style of management vs. Japanese style of management 4 Standardization 5 Types of Kaizen 5 Conclusion 6 References 7
Introduction
Today, all manufacturing industries are trying to increase their productivity and respond to rapidly changing customer needs. All the companies declare that their priority is to provide customers with the highest quality, on the other hand they are also trying to reduce costs as much as possible. Thanks to globalization, today’s competition has become really tough. There are several managerial approaches how to face globalization. Some of them have been successfully applied all over the world. However, there have been also tools, which many of the companies did not succeed with. One of such tools is Japanese method called Kaizen. Kaizen is a Japanese method of management which helps manufacturing companies to remain competitive and keep their market share through continuous improvement of manufacturing system processes.
In this MMGT6001 Strategy and Entrepreneurship assignment, I will focus on main features of Kaizen philosophy, on its main advantages and disadvantages, on how Japanese way of management differs from that of western world and last but not least on why western companies often fail when applying Kaizen.
What is Kaizen?
Word Kaizen comes from Japan. ‘Kai’ means ‘change’ and ‘Zen’ means for ‘better’. Sometimes we are talking about so called ‘Gemba Kaizen’, which means continuous improvement. Continuous Improvement is one of the core strategies how to reach perfection in production (Dean and Robinson, 1991). Continuous improvement means endless effort for
CEMS/INTERNATIONAL MANAGEMENT PROGRAMME
MMGT6001 Strategy and Entrepreneurship written assignment on:
KAIZEN – CONTINUOUS IMPROVEMENT – LEAN MANAGEMENT
Holeček Václav SID 311304451 Term 2 2011/2012
TABLE OF CONTENT
Introduction 3 What is Kaizen? 3 Process orientation 4 Western style of management vs. Japanese style of management 4 Standardization 5 Types of Kaizen 5 Conclusion 6 References 7
Introduction
Today, all manufacturing industries are trying to increase their productivity and respond to rapidly changing customer needs. All the companies declare that their priority is to provide customers with the highest quality, on the other hand they are also trying to reduce costs as much as possible. Thanks to globalization, today’s competition has become really tough. There are several managerial approaches how to face globalization. Some of them have been successfully applied all over the world. However, there have been also tools, which many of the companies did not succeed with. One of such tools is Japanese method called Kaizen. Kaizen is a Japanese method of management which helps manufacturing companies to remain competitive and keep their market share through continuous improvement of manufacturing system processes.
In this MMGT6001 Strategy and Entrepreneurship assignment, I will focus on main features of Kaizen philosophy, on its main advantages and disadvantages, on how Japanese way of management differs from that of western world and last but not least on why western companies often fail when applying Kaizen.
What is Kaizen?
Word Kaizen comes from Japan. ‘Kai’ means ‘change’ and ‘Zen’ means for ‘better’. Sometimes we are talking about so called ‘Gemba Kaizen’, which means continuous improvement. Continuous Improvement is one of the core strategies how to reach perfection in production (Dean and Robinson, 1991). Continuous improvement means endless effort for
References: Dean, M. and Robinson, A. 1991, America’s Most Successful Export to Japan: Continuous Improvement Programs, Sloan Management Review, Vol. 3, p. 67. Ghalayani, A., Noble, J. S and Crowe, T. J. 1997,An Integrated Dynamic Performance Measurement System for Improving Manufacturing Competitiveness, International Journal of Production Economics, Vol. 48, No. 2, pp. 20-25 Imai, M. 1986, Kaizen: The Key to Japan’s Competitive Success, McGraw Hill, New York, USA. Malik, S. A. and YeZhuang, T. 2006, Execution of Continuous Improvement Practices in Spanish and Pakistani Industry: A comparative Analysis, IEEE International Conference on Management of Innovation and Technology, Vol. 2, pp. 761 – 765, Singapore. Pursuing kaizen for quality. (2000, Aug 05). New Straits Times, pp. 04.EX-04-EX. Viewed on 12 October, <http://search.proquest.com/docview/266591399?accountid=17203>